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Date : 21/04/2005
Source: Ministry of Education
Title: Pandor: National Student Financial Aid Scheme Annual Awards


Address by the Minister of Education, Ms Naledi Pandor, MP, at the National Student Financial Aid Scheme Annual Awards Evening, President Hotel, Seapoint, Cape Town

Chairperson and Board of NSFAS
Financial Aid and NSFAS staff
Vice-Chancellors
Distinguished guests

I am extremely pleased to have been asked to speak here tonight.

NSFAS is a home from home for me, as I was Chair of NSFAS’s predecessor organisation, TEFSA.

There are many familiar faces here tonight. All have made a contribution to the achievements of TEFSA, NSFAS and the higher education sector.

Many people have forgotten that we did not have student financial aid 13 years ago. When TEFSA was formed it had the grand sum of R10 million to disburse. At the time even this sum was seen as revolutionary. We never dreamed of what TEFSA would become.

Today NSFAS is an important public entity with a turnover of R1.5 billion a year.

NSFAS emerged as a result of our commitment to achieve redress and widened access in the higher education sector. It was established in fulfilment of the commitment made fifty years ago in the Freedom Charter: “Higher education and technical training shall be opened to all by means of state allowances and scholarships awarded on the basis of merit.”

I frequently meet young black professionals who proudly say that their achievements have only been possible because they were assisted by NSFAS.

And they usually indicate that they are pleased to be paying back the loan portions of their NSFAS awards, especially because every cent repaid is re-injected into the scheme to assist other students.

This year, for instance, I approved a budget that provides for R280 million of repaid loans to be re-allocated to students. This means that at least 26,000 students will be assisted this year out of loan repayments alone. This year the scheme will assist nearly 100,000 students.

This is an indication of the extraordinary success of the scheme.

I understand that NSFAS is currently implementing an improved loan-recovery strategy to enhance the level of loan repayments even further.

The scheme has contributed to the acceleration of transformation in the racial profile of the graduate population in South Africa.

SAQA’s National Learners Record Database confirmed this transformation last year in its report on the decade 1992 - 2001.1 We now have more black and female graduates than ever before.

The results of a recent HSRC survey of research and development revealed that in 2003/04 South Africa spent about R10.1 billion, or 0.81% of GDP, on research and development as compared to the 2001/02 R&D survey which recorded research and development expenditure as R7.5 billion, or 0.76% of GDP.

Although the study did not examine the demographic profile of researchers in South Africa in great detail, it did show a move towards a growing number of female and black researchers.

And once more a share in the credit for that achievement must go to NSFAS.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the NSFAS board for their contribution to making the scheme a success. I specifically want to acknowledge the contributions of Wiseman Nkuhlu, Merlin Mehl, and Roy Jackson.

In recognition of the important role of student financing support, the National Treasury allocated to NSFAS in the 2005 budget an additional R776 million above the original MTEF estimates for the current MTEF period. (2) This is a huge injection into the scheme and I hope that the additional amount will go a long way towards meeting the needs of current students.

Over the past year the burden of poverty was starkly revealed among students at our higher education institutions. Many are so poor that they rely solely on NSFAS and institutional assistance for their survival.

You may be aware of my comments concerning the need for a review of the current framework of NSFAS. While a great deal of work has been done at different levels and in different initiatives, and the Board’s contribution has been most helpful, I still believe there may be more we need to do.

Therefore, as I advised the National Assembly portfolio committee for education last month, any further investigation into student financial aid should be part of the overall investigation into the financing of higher education, an investigation that is jointly being undertaken by the Department of Education and the Treasury.

In discussion with the board earlier this evening, we agreed on a number of areas that the board would look into and advise me on.

Any study of the financing of higher education has to be guided by our long-term view of higher education.

* How do we for instance balance the competing demands on our system ranging from economic development to cultural advancement?

* To what extent do we steer students into particular fields of study as opposed to allowing them the freedom to choose?

These and many other questions need to be addressed and debated now that we are emerging from the restructuring of the sector.

There are other matters that are critically important to student success in higher education.

Financial support on its own is clearly not enough. The role of student support services should not be neglected. Financial aid bureaux must have adequate infrastructure and human resources in order to provide support to students.

Furthermore, more attention should be paid to monitoring students who are NSFAS recipients. The success rates of students are extremely worrying. Sadly, much of our information is anecdotal, as little research is being done to monitor and their academic progress.

It would be helpful to have a clearer sense of success rates and their link to the availability of student services, of academic development programmes, and thus to integrated approaches within our financial aid bureaux.

Institutional leadership has to ensure that these support mechanisms are available and adequately funded.

All of you are aware of the ongoing concerns about the low level of skills in critical economic domains. Higher education and NSFAS stand challenged over how to assist government in providing relevant responses. The crisis of skills is so serious that all institutions have to play a role in addressing it.

Our inadequacies cannot be allowed to compromise the best interests of students.

All these problems arise from the fact that we have not developed a systematic, focused, student and youth research institution or body. Much of what we know about young people is often after the fact. We know, for example, that there is graduate unemployment and yet we know very little of the reasons determining unemployment. Not much is being done to establish whether retraining or reskilling could assist in addressing this challenge.

Part of the reasons for these gaps in knowledge and action is that we tend to view South Africa in institutional terms. We view ourselves as university X, providing degree Y, worth so many credits. As long as students meet our criteria, we are happy to carry on. We do not regard it as necessary to establish whether these graduates are active beyond my faculty or my institution. We appear not to have an external view of our role and remain closeted in institutional practice far removed from society’s needs.

We need to do much more to question our programmes, their core structure and content, and their fit for the world beyond our walls.

Unfortunately, the same facts are true for the education departments and even of NSFAS.

In my view the time has come to look beyond our walls into South Africa. There is a growing body of respected evidence that suggests that we can do more and better in human resource development.

There are some who say more financing for higher education may be necessary to promote such action.

However, given the current neglect of this necessary look at academic practice, student success, and the needs of South Africa, I am convinced that much more than just providing financing is needed.

Beyond looking at this link to development and our economy’s skills needs, we must also respond to the challenge of providing improved careers advice and support to young people.

Too many youths see universities as the only option open to them.

We should create a variety of training opportunities and develop our institutions so that they can be far more responsive to a rapidly changing South Africa.

Finally, we also have to become more efficient at managing student access, policies on fees, and inclusive decision-making on fee matters.

Good planning also requires that student financial aid needs should be investigated and considered well in advance of the academic year. The disruptions we have at the beginning of the year can, in large part, be avoided if institutions have undertaken proper advance planning and consultation.

Many of the problems are resolved before the start of the academic year at those institutions that have effective financial aid committees on which students are also fully represented.

Student leaders must also be responsible, so that understand they are bound by the agreements they make. It may be necessary for financial aid bureaux to run workshops for SRCs on NSFAS so that they give their constituencies accurate information.

These are some of the challenges that we all face, and I know that you are discussing some of them during your workshop. I trust that you will make good progress in your continuing efforts to widen access to higher education.

In conclusion, I would like to congratulate all those individuals and institutions that are recognised here tonight. It is because of your commitment to student financial aid that we are able to make a difference to the lives of so many South Africans.

1 The proportion of qualifications awarded by South African universities to black students (African, coloured and Indian learners) increased from 37.1% in 1992 to 53.7% in 2001. The proportion of qualifications awarded by South African technikons to black students increased even more rapidly from 24.7% in 1992 to 74.8% in 2001. By 1995 women began to outnumber men and by 2001 56% of all university qualifications – the change at technikons was slightly less - were awarded to women. The total number of graduates doubled over the ten-year period from 478 198 to 975 993.

2 The Department transfers to NSFAS the following sums: R864,1 in 2005/6, R926,4 million in 2006/7, and R1.1 billion in 2007/8. Other revenue comprises donor funds and loan repayment (Treasury, Estimates of National Expenditure 2005, p. 328).

Issued by: Ministry of Education
21 April 2005

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