Unisa: SRC to engage Nsfas following shutdown
The University of South Africa (Unisa) on Monday said it student representative council (SRC) will discuss various concerns it has with the National Student Financial Aid scheme (Nsfas).
Unisa and the SRC reached an agreement at the weekend following a week-long protests by students.
Demands made by the protesting students included that Nsfas substitute the textbook allowance for laptops and accusations that the university is not registered with the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA).
Unisa spokesperson Martin Ramotshela says the SRC has agreed to form their own task team to engage with Nsfas.
"The students had already started engaging the Department of Higher Education and there was an agreement between them and the department that they will set up a task team that will urgently engage Nsfas on the demands they are raising.
"One was on the issue of extension of benefits to Unisa students. In other words Unisa students must enjoy the same benefits as any student who’s at a full-time university, there is also the matter of textbooks vs laptops.
"So when the task team meets, it's our understanding that these matters are now going to be ventilated there as part of that task team meeting with Nsfas and that's where the decision will be taken on those matters," says Ramotshela.
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Ramotshela says the Department of Higher Education will work with Unisa and SAQA on a programme to deal with some qualifications not registered with the authority.
"There is already a process in place being led by the Department of Higher Education and Training, wherein they have committed that urgently they will convene both Unisa, the Council of Higher Education and SAQA, and together they can work on a program to fast track the issuing of these SAQA ID.
" As we speaking now I think work has already started on Friday to look into making this meeting happen as a matter of urgency, so the students were quite satisfied that there is an intervention in place.”
Ramotshela says there is a possibility that qualifications which were scrapped due to SAQA qualifications criteria could be reinstated. .
"Part of the things that are going to be considered in that intervention is to allow these qualifications that we didn't want to offer because of the lack of SAQA ID to be re-opened for students while the SAQA ID are being addressed."