The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) is a South African government student bursary and loan scheme responsible for allocating funding to students of the 26 public universities and 50 TVET colleges in South Africa. NSFAS receives a funding budget from the Department of Higher Education and Training to provide financial aid through bursaries and loans to qualifying students at public universities and colleges in South Africa. This entire financial aid process can be streamlined by higher education institutions with the ITS Integrator Interface with NSFAS.
In 2018 alone the NSFAS doled out R22 billion to a total of 659 000 students (Source).
Without NSFAS, the following candidates would not be able to further their studies and therefore build a better life for themselves:
- Those who attended no-fees schools.
- Those who have unemployed parents.
- Those who can’t afford the fees and other costs associated with studying further, even though they have the ability to excel.
- Those who receive SASSA grants.
- Orphans.
NSFAS student life cycle process
In order to get funded a student has to go through the NSFAS student life cycle process highlighted below:
- A first-time student will apply for funding, directly with NSFAS
(For returning students, institutions have to send academic results to NSFAS)
- NSFAS will then evaluate the applications or academic results and either provisionally fund the student or reject the application.
- The institutions will then be given access to NSFAS data in order to determine which students have been funded and rejected.
- The institutions will then send a cost estimate for all students to the NSFAS.
- The student is then required to sign the NSFAS Bursary Agreement.
- NSFAS will then pay the institutions money for Tuition, Accommodation and other Allowances and the institutions will then distribute allowance accordingly.
But… In order for a student to go through this process there is a lot of back-office administration that has to take place, which typically drags on for a long amount of time and there is a lot of room for error considering how many applications have to be processed.
Speeding up the process with the ITS Integrator interface with NSFAS
Adapt IT’s ITS Integrator is an ERP designed specifically for the unique needs of higher education, It is an integrated system capable of managing the entire student lifecycle, from enquiries to application, registration and Alumni management, as well as all the operational aspects of the institution that are based on student registration and lifecycle.
Using the ITS Integrator interface with NSFAS, presents the following key benefits:
- Users can easily download and process the data of only provisionally funded students from NSFAS.
(By only processing the provisionally funded student’s data the system eliminates maldistribution of funds)
- The institution is able to easily and very quickly distribute funds to their students, because their details have already been captured into the ITS Integrator.
- Because the system is so well integrated the finance department can easily transfer all ITS Integrator interface with NSFAS transactions to the Student Debtors module – thus eliminating the need to recapture data.
- Lastly the interface also provides easy access to log files, making it easy for financial managers to keep track of what changes were made by who.
Adapt IT Education’s ITS Integrator interface with NSFAS includes every aspect of higher education administration and management. The Student Management Financials module allows for complete NSFAS student management.
Conclusion
Adapt IT Education’s ITS Integrator is a must-have for easily managing all NSFAS student financial details.
