The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (Nsfas) finances essential costs such as tuition fees, transport costs, education material costs and grocery costs, for qualifying tertiary students.
The bursary scheme also provides its recipients with an accommodation allowance, which helps students stay close to their public university or Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) College.
According to Nsfas CEO, Andile Nongogo, an estimated R13 billion is spent on student accommodation. Recently, the government bursary scheme came up with a new system and it has also announce the following in a statement:
The Nsfas student accommodation portal is ready for accommodation providers to register and load their accommodation to be considered for Nsfas beneficiaries.
The government bursary scheme further stated that once the providers have signed in, they will be able to list their properties by providing their property names, location and images.
This will be followed by Nsfas contacting the providers, and then a panel of experts will be sent to accredit and grade the properties to ensure that they are suitable for student living.
This comes after there had been concerns of third parties receiving funds from students but providing poor services.
It is for this reason that Higher Education Director General, Dr. Nkosinathi Sishi, Sushi admitted that this is a problem and an area that needs improvement.
Additionally, Nsfas had called on institutions of higher learning, accommodation providers, developers, investors and all relevant individuals or groups who seek to apply for off-take agreements in the provision of student accommodation for Nsfas beneficiaries.
When it comes to the application process of signing off-take agreements is for underdeveloped and yet-to-be-developed accommodation facilities.
