- NSFAS recipients will need to pass 75% of their modules to continue being funded.
- According to Wits SRC president Cebolenkosi Khumalo, the increased pass rate is not taking into account the backgrounds some students come from.
- The SA Union of Students and various SRCs say they will never agree to policies that do not advance poor students.
The Student Representative Council at Wits has come out guns blazing against multiple guidelines proposed by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS).
The SRC joined the SA Union of Students (SAUS) in saying the proposed guidelines presented to them by NSFAS during a consultative meeting sought to disadvantage poor students while advancing the rich.
Among the guidelines is that continuing tertiary education students would need to pass 75% of their course modules to continue being funded by the scheme from 2023. Previously, students had to pass 50% of their modules.
NSFAS has also capped accommodation allowances for university and TVET college students - something which also raised the ire of students.
According to Wits SRC president Cebolenkosi Khumalo, NSFAS was "starting a fight" with its proposed guidelines.
"What you can see is that NSFAS is failing; they are reversing the victories fought for during the Fees Must Fall [campaign]. They are doing budget cuts. The truth is that NSFAS is funding the poorest of the poor in institutions," Khumalo said.
"They [NSFAS] are starting a fight. First, the issue of reducing the amount of accommodation, they are going to create an accommodation crisis."
The SAUS along with SRCs from various tertiary institutions met with NSFAS for a consultative meeting on Monday.
"We must categorically state that the proposed guidelines as they were presented by NSFAS were rejected by the union.
"As a result, the union resolved that all SRCs must make their own submissions to the secretary- general of SAUS, and the union will consolidate the report and reconvene all stakeholders and engage on the guidelines," the SAUS said.
According to the NSFAS' eligibility criteria and conditions for funding policy standard document, which News24 has seen, all continuing students who were not a first-time entry (FTEN) student in their previous academic year of study must continue meeting their ongoing academic eligibility requirements to continue being funded.
The scheme said the criteria now also included students who first registered at a university in 2018 and after.
"At a minimum, a 75% course pass rate must be achieved by all continuing students that were not a FTEN student in 2022. This requirement will become effective as of the 2023 academic year.
"This means that continuing students that were not a FTEN student in 2022 must achieve a 75% course pass rate for their 2022 studies in order to qualify as an eligible continuing student in 2022," NSFAS added in the document.
It said students who failed to meet the requirement would be allowed to appeal.
Khumalo said that asking students to pass three-quarters of their modules was not practical and "illogical" because students were exposed to different conditions that resulted in them not passing with higher marks.
He added other students only adapted to tertiary institutions in their second and third years because they were from rural areas and had to learn the basics, including English, when they arrived at university.
Khumalo said it would be difficult to meet the requirement because students came from different backgrounds, adding blended learning caused by the Covid-19 pandemic had put a strain on some of them.
He added:Accommodation
The scheme has also made amendments to the accommodation allowances for students.
NSFAS said discrepancies existed between allowances for TVET and university students, adding the differences were "historical in nature but need to be remedied in the interest of fairness".
"As such, increases to all NSFAS allowances will be restricted and available budget directed towards the NSFAS allowances for TVET students until such time that parity is achieved.
"The university accommodation allowance is capped at R33 000 per annum, and universities will need to provide comprehensive motivations to NSFAS for any higher costs.
"As with TVET college accommodation allowances, universities will need to classify private accommodation providers into rural, peri-urban and urban categories. University allowances for private accommodation will be capped per category to align with TVET college private accommodation allowances as of the 2023 academic year."
Khumalo said the capped amount failed to take into consideration the areas in which students lived, where accommodation was expensive.
"This [capped amount] fails to take into consideration the actual rate, and different provinces we stay in. For example here in Braamfontein, the cheapest accommodation you can get within a year is R44 000 but NSFAS says it will provide R33 000."
He added NSFAS and the Department of Higher Education needed to ensure students were in "conducive accommodation that will allow them to focus".
The 'N' rule
NSFAS has also revised the number of years funded students are expected to finish their degrees, known as the "N+ rule".
"The N+ rule is now standardised for all students at N+2 and will be used to limit the duration that NSFAS provides financial aid to students," it said in the draft policy.
The "+2" means students will have a window of two extra years to complete their qualifications.
"The revised N+ rule will not have retrospective applicability and will only be for the 2022 academic year and onwards.
"Where NSFAS ceased the provision of financial aid to a student based on the N+1 rule in 2021 or earlier, these students may not qualify for further financial aid from NSFAS in 2022 or beyond."
Students with disabilities remain on with an extra three years to complete their studies.
"The N+ rule is no longer applied only at the exit point of the programme for TVET college students as of the 2022 academic term."
'Systematic exclusion'
The SAUS said the proposed guidelines presented to it by NSFAS were not final and the purpose of meeting with the scheme was to give it and SRCs time to deliberate and discuss the proposed guidelines.
It added:Khumalo warned the guidelines would open a can of worms, and students would be fighting them at all costs from next year if they were implemented.
He said the guidelines were a "systematic exclusion" of students who were not from well-off families.
"This is direct racism that is being implemented. We are going to fight and we are going to have a fight going into next year. Yes, this year we lost Mthokozisi, but we managed to bring back students. If it means we must fight, if it means institutions of higher learning must close - that is going to happen.
"No one is going to be removed because of these policies that are anti-revolutionary."
Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify that students need to pass 75% of their course modules, not attain 75% per course.