On Wednesday afternoon, the Minister of Higher Education took the podium to announce the Department's Budget Vote for 2023/24. He outlined plans for student funding in the country.
For the 2023/24 academic year, the Department of Higher Education has a budget of R133.8 billion, with an average increase of 5.3% every year, to spend on the sector. One of their major expenses is student funding, including the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS).
Currently, NSFAS funds 1.1 million students at a cost of R47,6 billion for the 2023 academic year. The Minister of Higher Education, Blade Nzimande, revealed that universities have been allocated R38.6 billion of this amount and TVET Colleges R8.9 billion.
This shows that the scheme has come quite far with only 7 000 students having been funded when it was introduced at a cost of R21.4 million and now, NSFAS has reached a milestone with funding over 1 million students for the first time.
Of the 1.1 million students funded, 49% of them are made up of Sassa beneficiaries with NSFAS fulfilling it's mandate to give those who come from poor backgrounds, access to education.
However, a major issue in the country is the gap in student funding available as there are many students who don't qualify to receive a NSFAS bursary but need it. The department has however said that they are planning to provide support to these students.
Comprehensive Student Funding Model Coming Soon
During his Budget Vote speech, the Minister announced that government is looking at introducing a Comprehensive Student Funding Model to support those students who are not eligible to receive a NSFAS bursary. On this, he said:
... we now are working towards the finalisation of a new Comprehensive Student Funding Model, based on the considerations of this report which we aim to submit to Cabinet before the end of this year.
"We aim through this also to introduce measures to support all the categories of students including those who are not supported by the current NSFAS funding policy," he explained.
Most universities in South Africa have significantly increased their tuition and registration fees over the past few years.
Although government has made progress in providing funding to students who come from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds, funding for missing middle students remains a critical challenge.
The “missing middle” refers to those students who come from working-class households that do not qualify for funds from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme while at the same time, they cannot afford higher education.
This new funding model that the department has been working on is set to avail loans and bursaries and direct these efforts toward students located within the scarce skills categories.
