NSFAS ICT failures flagged among reasons for latest administrative cycle. (Image source: 123RF)
The National Student Financial Aid Scheme’s (NSFAS’s) continuous ICT system failures have reared their ugly head, resulting in the agency being placed under administration once again.
This week, higher education and training minister Buti Manamela placed NSFAS under administration, citing governance instability within the institution.
Additional reasons for the move, revealed Manamela, include delays in ICT modernisation and systems integration, data integrity concerns, and unresolved student appeals caused substantially by system deficiencies and weaknesses in consequence-management.
The decision to again place the embattled entity under administration comes as it has been hit by a spate of resignations, including board interim chairperson and board member Dr Mugwena Maluleke.
The minister further announced professor Hlengani Mathebula as administrator.
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According to the minister, the administrator’s mandate will focus on “restoring stability, accountability, operational continuity and institutional renewal”.
Key priorities include strengthening governance and internal controls, addressing audit and consequence-management weaknesses, accelerating ICT and systems integration reforms and stabilising student funding operations.
As part of the Department of Higher Education and Training, the NSFAS runs a close to R50 billion annual budget, providing financial aid to eligible students at public TVET colleges and public universities.
NSFAS has, over the years, faced systemic governance issues, including IT system failures and mismanagement within the scheme.
Following the debacle with the fintech providers, the NSFAS board was booted in 2024, leading to the entity being placed under administration by science, technology and innovation minister professor Blade Nzimande, who served as higher education minister at the time.
Nzimande also cited “serious” IT systems challenges as the reason for dissolving the board and named former SA accountant-general Freeman Nomvalo as the entity’s administrator.
During his term as administrator, Nomvalo told Parliament’s higher education portfolio committee that NSFAS does not possess credible student data and is vulnerable to cyber attacks.
In 2023, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) saidflaws and weaknesses in the IT systems of the financial aid scheme resulted in overpayments, underpayments and payments to ‘ghost students’ over the years. The SIU, at the time, uncovered that the scheme incorrectly funded some 40 000 non-qualifying students to the tune of more than R5.1 billion.
In 2022, a group of tertiary students, named “Youthful Hope”, threateneda nationwide academic shutdown, because of frustrations with the scheme’s IT system and mismanagement.
The students claimed they had been excluded from NSFAS funding due to the online system miscalculating the number of years they had been funded by the financial aid scheme.
Meanwhile, in 2020, Nzimande saida ministerial committee of inquiry had been appointed to investigate business processes, including an “inadequate” R100 million IT system at NSFAS.
Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training has raised concerns about placing NSFAS through yet another administrative cycle.
Portfolio committee chairperson Tebogo Letsie says the minister’s decision is “deeply troubling” and points to gross breakdown in governance systems.
“The repeated placement of NSFAS under administration is deeply concerning. It means that, since 2018, the entity has had three administrators appointed to address persistent governance failures, non-compliance with legal recommendations, poor management of student allowances, and now we have professor Hlengani Mathebula appointed as the third administrator.”
Letsie points out that something needs to be done to save the entity, following a series of resignations from the NSFAS board in recent weeks, including that of Maluleka.
The instability at senior management and board level often means the students who are the main clients are led by a rudderless entity with no sense of direction, he adds.
“Last year, during the term of Dr Stander, we had thought we were on the right path in turning NSFAS around, and then we were surprised by her sudden departure. We ought to understand and get to the root causes as to why good leaders do not last at NSFAS.
“All we seek is a student-centred entity that can fund deserving students and disburse allowances timeously. However, persistent challenges with data verification continue to undermine this objective.
“Unless NSFAS decisively resolves its governance shortcomings, we risk grappling with these problems for many years to come, with students enduring the worst of the repeated administrative failures.”
Meanwhile, Solidariteit Helpende Hand says students can no longer pay the price for a system that is not working.
Yolandi Theron, head of Solidariteit Helpende Hand’s Study Trust, says the intervention announced by Manamela follows an accumulation of crises within NSFAS.
The system is failing on multiple levels, from delayed funding to accommodation challenges and unprocessed appeals, she notes.
“The current situation shows that the problem is not simply a lack of funding,” says Theron.
“It shows that a system without stable governance and accountability simply cannot hold, regardless of the size of its budget.
“Students cannot wait for systems to work someday. They need certainty now.”
