• A wave of university and TVET college students looking for help to receive their NSFAS funds have taken the Tenetech and eZaga websites offline.
• Every month, NSFAS students struggle to get paid their stipends, which include living expenses and tuition.
• NSFAS is expected to announce a new payment method to students this month.

A new month means new struggles for the million-plus beneficiaries of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) to receive their stipends. Thousands of students are looking for help to receive their funds from the scheme, so much so that the Tenetech website has been brought offline this morning due to the servers being overburdened.

Tenetech is one of the four fintech partners that NSFAS is paying to help it facilitate direct payments to student beneficiaries. These include living expenses and tuitions. In official communications from the company via X, Tenetech claims that it has paid its university beneficiaries as of 30th March 2024. No word specifically about payments made to students at TVET colleges.

However, the comments on Tenetech posts on X are filled with users asking about payments and complaints. Many of them are asking for help from the company. In late March, the company launched a Live Chat feature on its website, where students could get assistance for their related queries.

NSFAS students struggle for their money and it’s not just Tenetech

It’s not just Tenetech that is having a problem giving students information when it comes to payments. The eZaga NSFAS portal is also offline as of this morning. This time the webpage is citing a 503 error with downtime caused by maintenance or capacity problems. It seems the web pages for Coinvest Africa and Norraco are still online at press time.

Last week Tyme Bank posted on X that it was struggling to process student payments between UNISA and NSFAS. UNISA was the sole university to not issue payments on time in March, with students reacting negatively to added regulations that it imposed before disbursing payments.

Last month, NSFAS said that it would be using universities to once again aid with student payments, despite still having the four fintech partners on contract. This was after an internal investigation alleged that the four fintech partners procured contracts in breach of government tender regulations and announced that they were to be fired.

NFSAS says that over one million students are being funded by the scheme for the 2024 academic year, but social channels belonging to the scheme are constantly filled with people claiming to be struggling to get paid or launch appeals.

Tenetech CEO Ryan Passmore told Hypertext last month that the company’s channels are constantly overburdened by queries from students. Many, including student organisations, have said that NSFAS is currently embroiled in a crisis. The scheme has vehemently denied this.

NSFAS is expected to announce a new method to fund students this month.