At the start of the 2022 academic year, the bursary scheme experienced high-traffic volume, causing the system to be down. However, urgent system upgrades were arranged.
In September 2022, Higher Education Minister Dr. Blade Nzimande announced that the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (Nsfas) application system had improved. The improvements meant that the bursary scheme would be able to handle higher volumes of online applications.
This is an indication that the bursary scheme has made a few but significant changes to its system. In an information session, Khaya Ndima, an Acting Senior Manager Operations at Nsfas said:
After creating an account, you need to log in to your myNSFAS account using your ID number and password.
In the previous application cycles, students logged into myNsfas using their email address, but this is a thing of the past.
As part of the new changes, Ndima has explained that students will be required to choose three security questions out of a range of questions when setting a password.
According to Nsfas, this change was made due to applicants forgetting their passwords, having to reset it which required human intervention and fortunately, this will help to avoid a backlog.
It has been confirmed that this system has real time responses and the application system can be paused and continued at a later stage, without having to start from scratch.
Nzimande has shared that the Nsfas application system has been simplified and developed to be more user friendly, making it similar to other platforms that prospective applicants are used to such as WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.
