Higher Education Stakeholders Ready for 2025 Academic Year – Africa.com
Universities should prioritize submitting accurate student registration and enrollment data to the National Student Finance Scheme (NSFAS) at the start of the academic year to ensure accurate funding decisions, the Higher Education Portfolio Committee said yesterday.
The committee was speaking at a briefing on preparation and training by the Department of Higher Education and Training, Universities South Africa, the Public Universities Organization of South Africa, NSFAS, the Union of South African Students and the South African Technical Vocational Education and Training Students Association. Get ready for the 2025 school year.
The committee recommended that problems arising from the 2024 registration period should not continue in 2025. These include delays in processing funding applications, disbursing allowances, processing appeals and matters relating to private accommodation.
“With our participation, we hope that the measures taken to ensure a successful start to the 2025 academic year will be properly initiated by stakeholders in post-school education and training,” said Mr Tebogo Letsie, Chairman of the Committee on Training.
NSFAS told the committee it had concluded the pilot project and was now implementing an NSFAS-accredited student accommodation scheme. NSFAS also said it was negotiating to stop paying accommodation fees to individual students and that by 2026, all accommodation fees would be paid directly to accredited or accredited accommodation providers.
The committee recommended that the Department of Higher Education and Training should speed up the process of standardizing allowances for technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and university students, recognizing their shared experiences.
The committee will conduct an oversight visit during the 2025 academic year to assess the readiness of TVET and community education training colleges.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of the Republic of South Africa: Parliament.
