The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) announced the deployment of support teams to all 50 Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges across South Africa to streamline bursary administration and ensure a smooth start to the 2025 academic year.
NSFAS provides comprehensive bursaries and student loans to deserving learners enrolled in approved courses at universities and TVET colleges. NSFAS funding covers tuition and registration fees, as well as several allowances for food, accommodation, and learning materials.
This initiative involves deploying 50 Servicing Administrators to assist TVET colleges from 13 January to 7 March 2025.
These administrators will rotate between 3 or 4 colleges during this period.
Furthermore, 50 graduate interns will be stationed at each college to provide additional support.
We believe this collaborative approach will significantly improve our services to students. By enhancing support at the college level, we aim to ensure students receive the necessary financial assistance to succeed in their studies.
NSFAS confirmed it will pay 20% of each TVET College’s tuition allocation for 2025. This translates to a total upfront payment of more than R640 million.
Therefore, a total amount of R641,013,350.00 is to be paid as tuition upfront to TVET colleges by the 10th of January 2025.
The Portfolio Committee on Higher Education called on institutions to submit accurate student registration data to NSFAS to prevent allowance payment delays.
The committee recommended that issues emanating from the 2024 registration period should not continue in 2025. These issues included delays in processing applications for funding, disbursements of allowances, processing of appeals and matters related to private accommodation.
They further called on the Department of Higher Education and Training to expedite the process of standardising allowances for TVET College and university students.
