NSFAS cuts CPUT students funding
|Published
NSFAS offices in Wynberg. This is a government bursary and student loan institution. Reception area. Picture: Tracey Adams/African News Agency (ANA) NSFAS offices in Wynberg. This is a government bursary and student loan institution. Reception area. Picture: Tracey Adams/African News Agency (ANA)
A number of Cape Peninsula University of Technology students have been left without funding after NSFAS cut it.
A day before their allowances were supposed to be paid into their bank accounts, the students received an email informing them that funding has been cancelled.
Many, like Siphokazi Mxatule, a second-year environmental management student from PE, are from outside the Western Cape, and do not have families they can rely on here.
“They decided to remove our funding, now we are stuck at residence with no food and we can’t even make an appeal,” she says.
“I was getting my allowance for the first two months and my application was approved.”
“It is difficult to study because I don’t know who’s going to pay my fees, my mother is unemployed and my dad is a pensioner,” she says.
STUCK: Student Siphokazi Mxatule
CPUT spokesperson Lauren Kansely said the funding was cancelled for a variety of reasons.
“We have sent out notices to a batch of students who have had their NSFAS funding revoked,” she explains.
“This is for a variety of reasons including that the students have not disclosed that they have already studied at other institutions previously and are therefore not eligible.
“CPUT’s Financial Aid unit is working with NSFAS officials to work through the list and ascertain the exact reason they have been flagged.
“This approach has already seen a few students have their funding reinstated,” says Kansley.
Dr Randall Carolissen, the NSFAS Administrator, said when NSFAS receives registration data from institutions, a number of verification processes are invoked.
“In some cases, an institution may submit registration data for approval of funding for a student based on their own records, but when NSFAS does a quality check that specific student does not qualify for funding, in that case, that specific student will be unfunded.”