It has long been debatable how to handle housing for students whose tuition is covered by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS). The main causes of this are the various problems that students and housing providers face.
Finding a balance between what is deemed a good living environment for students and what lodging providers offer—as well as figuring out what everyone involved beliefs should be included in the Norms and Standards for student housing—remains the scheme’s major problem.
Earlier this year, on Monday, June 27, and Tuesday, June 28, the National Student Financial Aids Scheme (NSFAS) met in Bloemfontein for a two-day Student Accommodation Summit.
The goal of this summit was to establish a forum for dialogue among market participants in student housing.
However, outside of the main part of the institutions, students weren’t particularly happy during the summit. This cohort of students stated that they would much rather reside inside the precinct of their respective institutions than outside of them.
Following the Summit, NSFAS was required to create a framework for sustainable NSFAS student housing as well as efficient tools for Post-Secondary Education and Training (PSET) to address the aforementioned issues
Providing decent, safe and academically conducive accommodation was to become the bursary scheme’s top priority to ensure the success of all students, according to a statement issued four days before the summit.
The bursary scheme’s solution to the underlying problem according to media reports includes the following:
- The process of developing an online Student Accommodation Portal has already commenced.
- Accreditation of accommodation, While universities were given the responsibility for performing this task, there have been cases where accommodations have received accreditation despite not following the requirements.
- Grading of accommodation, although it will be based on the minimum norms and criteria for student housing and take into account rural and urban conditions, the grading methodology will be similar to that used in the hospitality industry.
- Costing accommodation, when grading is complete, NSFAS will make payments based on the grade. Additionally, through this approach, NSFAS will be able to select what it is willing to spend and will be able to save money.
This formed part of discussions towards sustainable accommodation for NSFAS-funded students.