At the beginning of the 2023 academic year, the National Student Financial Aid Scheme sent a circular to all universities, informing them that funding would no longer be provided for specific qualifications.
According to this circular, the courses that were not to receive funding for 2021 included all legacy qualifications i.e. B TECH programmes, B Ed courses, B Curr courses, legacy 2- year diplomas, NQF level 8 qualifications - and any course with the word 'National' in the title.
As the issue of changed qualification codes had brought some confusion to students, in an information session, Khaya Ndima, an Acting Senior Manager Operations at Nsfas said:
Nsfas does fund BEd and LLB qualifications for students who meet the requirements.
The B Ed degree continues to be funded by Nsfas, but is now at an NQF level 7 on the National Qualifications Framework rather than level 8.
This comes after most of the BEd and LLB qualifications expired with the department, and institutions had to renew their licenses for these qualifications, hence there are new codes.
It is for this reason that institutions have been urged to go to the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) and update the qualification codes for their qualifications. Ndima further explained that Nsfas funds qualifications as per the information received from the DHET.
Students have been advised to raise the qualification error issue to the financial aid office for it to be addressed with Higher Education. Nsfas continues to fund qualifying students in across 26 public universities and 50 TVET Colleges.
