Another set of student protests broke out earlier this week at the University of South Africa’s (Unisa) Durban campus, where students protested a failure to release funds by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme Allowance (NSFAS) for allowances, as well as the extension of examinations.
Regarding the former, the Sowetan reports that NSFAS is blaming Unisa for non-payment of student allowances. This as it has advanced the institution with precisely R247 078 688.97 as of the 6th of February.
NSFAS would like to put it on record that students from this institution should have by now received their allowances as a total of R247 078 688.97 was advanced to the institution on February 06, 2019.#nsfas https://t.co/sV9sm7ejUB
— Kagišo (@kagishor) March 6, 2019
“Universities are required to transfer funds to ensure that students are able to access funds for living expenses and learning materials and then secondly funding towards paying the first instalment of the tuition fee,” said NSFAS.
The organisation also says that Unisa, along with 25 other universities, agreed to administer direct payments of allowances to their students.
Universities who complied with the pre-conditions of a signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), received a combined advance of R3 billion for students who were First-Time Entering Students (FTENs), as well as for senior students who were approved by NSFAS for funding.
At the time of writing there has been no official response from Unisa.
