- Solidarity Youth has launched an urgent application against NSFAS for non-payment of student fees.
- NSFAS said its legal office was dealing with the case and would not comment further.
- Solidarity Youth claims to represent 8 899 students from higher learning institutions.
Solidarity Youth has launched an urgent court application against the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) for allegedly unlawfully withdrawing funding for students it had committed to fund.
The application was launched on Thursday after it sent a letter of caution to NSFAS to force it to pay fees to approved students.
"NSFAS is absolving itself while thousands of students are now without a future. The upshot of NSFAS' mismanagement is that students have lost their bursaries and will therefore not be able to continue and complete their studies.
"These students all come from lower-income groups and cannot fund their studies in any other way," said Paul Maritz, the manager of Solidarity Youth and Career Development.
"For them, NSFAS provided an answer and was an opportunity to shape their future. Now they are being deprived of this by irregularities in the aid scheme,” he added.
Solidarity, in its court papers, rejected the notion that NSFAS had acted fairly in its cancellation of funding for some students.
"No institution has the right to unilaterally terminate a contract and to simply be remiss in fulfilling its obligations. What NSFAS did is not just unethical, but it is also immoral.
"NSFAS forgets that it [the scheme] is not just dealing with numbers but with people whose future is at stake. Solidarity will not tolerate such actions by institutions and will fight against such irregularities," said Anton van der Bijl, the head of legal services at Solidarity.
NSFAS told News24 on Monday its legal team was dealing with the case.
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