The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has announced that its student portal – myNSFAS – has been taken down due to too many people trying to access it.

“We are experiencing high-traffic volume on the myNSFAS Portal. Please note that we are arranging urgent system upgrades and as a result, the portal will be offline from today at noon until further notice,” a notice issued today reads.

“Please note that all affected applicants, including those who would like to appeal their application outcomes, will be granted additional time to do so once the system is back online. We apologise for the inconvenience.”

These problems are not out of nowhere. Last week we reported on the fact that the University of South Africa (Unisa) had found problems within the myNSFAS portal when it comes to displaying academic results.

It seems these problems, and others, have persisted.

The aforementioned appeals opened, also last week, on 3rd February. The rush to submit appeals may be what lead to the spike in traffic, especially as they must be completed within a deadline to be accepted.

“The NSFAS appeal functionality on the myNSFAS Portal will be available online from Today, February 03, 2022. All applicants with the ‘unsuccessful’ application status may log onto their myNSFAS accounts and submit an appeal application, with the required information and documents. Appeals should be submitted within 30 days after the appearance of the ‘unsuccessful’ status. Appeals submitted via email will not be accepted,” states an announcement from the opening of the appeals process.

For now all students, whether already funded or waiting to issue an appeal, will need to wait for the portal to open again. Those in the latter category will also need to wait and find out what extra time has been allotted to them.