Protests in South Africa Universities Against Delay in Government Allowances

By Tumuheire Agnes on August 17, 2018No Comment

Protests in South Africa Universities Against Delay in Government Allowances

University students in South Africa have stormed the streets to protest against the failure of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) to pay allowances.

According to the South African Unions of Students (SAUS) president, Misheck Mugabe, students at the universities of Venda, Limpopo and Mpumalanga were already on strike, while students at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth had also indicated that they were planning to join the protest.

“There is a looming national protest due to NSFAS allowances,” he said.

While addressing the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training in Parliament on Thursday August,16, Mugabe said that some students had been evicted from private hostels while others go without food due to the delay in payments.

Mugabe and South African Further Education and Training Student Association (Safetsa) president Yonke Twani called for the decentralisation of NSFAS and better communication with students and institutions.The meeting followed the committee’s meeting on May 30, where several problems with NSFAS’s payments – which have many students destitute – were discussed.

“Visibility of NSFAS in campuses is still a challenge, because NSFAS is more visible when colleges are burning,” Twani said.

Newly appointed NSFAS board chairperson Neil Garrod contradicted his predecessor Sizwe Nxasana, who said former president Jacob Zuma’s surprise announcement in December last year that free higher education would be expanded to include students from poor and working class families had left the organisation with “literally a few weeks to put systems in place”.

According News24, the issues in the NSFAS led to the resignation of the chairman, Sizwe Nxasana after ‘extreme strain’ on the payments system

Limpopo and Mpumalanga, National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), Neil Garrod, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Sizwe Nxasana, South African Further Education and Training Student Association (Safetsa), South African Unions of Students (SAUS), universities of Venda, Yonke Twani

Protests in South Africa Universities Against Delay in Government Allowances added by Tumuheire Agnes on August 17, 2018
View all posts by Tumuheire Agnes →

Post Views: 685

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.