Thousands of students don’t get grants due to technical problem, says DA
The student aid scheme’s system could not make payments, triggering protests at some universities and forcing some students to drop out of college
Thousands of students dependent on the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) have not received their grants yet. This was revealed on Wednesday during an oversight visit to the University of Venda in Limpopo by the portfolio committee on higher education and training‚ according to the DA’s Belinda Bozzoli. In a statement‚ the DA said it would write to the chairperson of the portfolio committee to request that NSFAS chairman Sizwe Nxasana be summoned to appear before the committee to explain why students still hadn’t been paid. "[On Tuesday] the portfolio committee could not meet on the campus of the University of Venda due to violent protest‚ triggered by the delays in the payment of NSFAS grants. These grants‚ distributed through the ‘sBux’ voucher system‚ are used by thousands of students all over the country to pay for private accommodation‚ food‚ books and travel‚" the DA said in the statement. "A technical problem in NSFAS’s centralised system apparently led to the inab...
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