A bright Tafelsig teen who matriculated top of her class has had her dreams of studying law at Stellenbosch University dashed after the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) made an error on her application and denied her funding.
The hartseer father of Aneeqah Sarels, 17, says officials just outright rejected her application for a state-funded bursary despite being provided with proof that he earns below the R350 000 annual salary threshold.
Aneeqah, who obtained six distinctions and an average of 86%, says she was left confused and disappointed by the rejection.
“I matriculated from Cedar High School in Rocklands and was named the top student,” she says.
“My dream was to study law and I applied at Stellenbosch University, UWC and UCT and got accepted at all three universities.
“I worked really hard and when I got my results, the family was very happy.”
She says she applied for NSFAS funding as her father, Klaas, 58, was the sole breadwinner and the family could not afford university fees.
“The weekend after we got our results, I got the rejection notice from NSFAS saying they have rejected the application because my father earns more than R350 000 per year, but we provided his payslip which shows he does not.”
The Daily Voice has seen Klaas’ payslip and can confirm he earns under R350K.
The disappointed father says he visited the NSFAS office in Wynberg in person to query the rejection.
“When we got there it was chaotic, there were so many people querying. They’re so skelm, they told the people to line up outside and once outside, they just locked them out,” he says.
“It is so unfair and after more than 20 years in my job, I may resign just to get my pension so my child does not have to sit at home.”
Aneeqah says in the meantime, she has started classes at the UCT Law Faculty as she did not need to pay registration fees.
“I went with my second option because I could not afford the registration fees at Stellenbosch,” she says.
“Right now I can attend UCT but at some point they are going to send a bill and NSFAS is just not giving us feedback. It really is unfair, we work so hard and we meet the NSFAS requirements. They made an error and now I must suffer.”
The NSFAS have not responded to questions about Aneeqah's application since last Thursday, but spokesperson Papama Mpupa stated: “We are awaiting approval from the executive’s office. We are following up on the request.
“However, I did mention that your response may delay as we are also processing other requests.
“We will provide your responses as soon as we receive feedback.”