Billions unlocked for free HE

News24 reported that the government has made billions available for tertiary education, but students have to fulfil strict criteria to get the money.

Satisfactory academic performance will be among the expectations university students will have to meet in order to qualify for government's funding scheme, said Higher Education and Training Minister Naledi Pandor who was updating the media on Tuesday about the funding scheme.

In December 2017, shortly before the ANC's elective conference was due to start, former president Jacob Zuma announced government would implement fee-free higher education for students from poor and working-class families. At that stage, there was no plan to fund it.

Government set aside additional funding of R7.166bn in 2018 - R4.581bn for qualifying university students and R2.585bn for technical vocational education and training (TVET) college students.

"As a result the baseline allocation to NSFAS (National Student Financial Aid Scheme) to support poor and working-class university and TVET students will increase from the R9.849bn in 2017/18 to R35.321bn in 2020/21," said Pandor.

"This implies a need for improved efficiency and systems development at NSFAS. We have therefore allocated an additional R105m over the medium-term expenditure framework to assist NSFAS to increase and strengthen its administrative capacity.

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