The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (Nsfas) provides comprehensive bursaries that enable students to obtain tertiary education qualifications. These bursaries aim to cover all the costs of the students’ tertiary education journey.
Nsfas bursaries cover tuition and accommodation fees. In addition, recipients of the Nsfas bursary may receive a stationery, personal care allowance and a transport allowance.
In recent years, as an initial response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Nsfas launched the digital device program whereby students were issued with laptops to aid their studies.
However, Nsfas recently acknowledged that while the provision of laptops assist students, they require more than the device to perform their day-to-day learning activities.
Students require data to access the internet for various reasons related to their studies, including research, accessing official notices from their institutions and the online submission of tasks.
Nsfas has now announced its intention to provide students with data so they can perform increased tasks related to their studies. The financial aid scheme is currently engaging with service providers and is aiming to conclude this process during the 1st quarter of the 2023 academic year.
“It is to this end, that Nsfas is currently engaging mobile network operators to enter into partnership agreements with Nsfas to develop a specified Nsfas student device package, which shall include a laptop and pre-loaded data on a monthly basis” detailed the financial aid scheme.
Nsfas envisions that students can then procure these discounted student packages with their Nsfas allowances reap the benefits of being a funded beneficiary.
The 2023 Nsfas bursary application period recently closed. The scheme announced that all qualifying students who have been enrolled at a higher education institution will be funded.
They explained this was possible due to budget certainty. Nsfas will receive R47.6 Billion to fund students during the 2023 academic year.
These funds will ensure that students studying approved courses at public universities and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges can complete their qualifications.
Nsfas will also be making upfront payments to universities and TVET colleges to allow for the payment of student allowances. Approximately R3.5 billion has been made available for universities and R2.7 billion for TVET colleges.
