The furore about the National Student Financial Aid Scheme’s (NSFAS) proposed funding changes was expected given our history and inherent limitations within the scheme to date.
While donors have the prerogative to determine conditions of funding, it is the symbiotic relationship that brings success. We expect the department and university student leadership to have critical but candid dialogues to refine areas of disagreement.
Passing 75% of enrolled course is attainable, yet we are accustomed to adopting “deficiency rationality” to make a case, using the disadvantaged context as the main card.
Coming from a disadvantaged environment is never a disability. We should rather underscore the importance of having access to best learning environments to argue our cases. Elsewhere, all students are required to pass all courses enrolled within a given academic year.
Historically, we have emboldened the culture of students failing to complete programmes on time. Repeating such courses or programmes has financial implications in a country already struggling to meet its national obligations. It is about time we deal with contextual factors creating this vicious cycle of repeaters and failures.
When resources are scarce, donors often choose the best for support and perpetuating the cycle of those failing to make the mark. We must isolate areas of challenge and address them to ensure that no deserving student is disadvantaged from accessing NSFAS and any other funding support. It must, however, be emphasised that those supported must complete courses and programmes on time to free up funds for the next generation of students.
The higher education and training sector has evolved with diverse disparities between developed and developing countries, especially on funding models for research and bursaries. The current socioeconomic and financial conditions add to the financial miseries.
Universities' reliance on public funding has increased competition for funding from The National Treasury.
Institutions, too, have had to transform their funding streams and student enrolment processes to maintain efficiency and effectiveness. Performance-based funding for higher education and training has become a decadal institutional practice fraught with controversy. Literature indicates that there “are gains and losses” to performance-based funding while critics argue that it “reinforces institutional disparities and makes little impact in improving completion rates”.
While the sector has a myriad of performance metrics used to design strategic funding streams, it is their contextualisation that often make them ineffective.
The NSFAS dissonance needs to be discussed within the broader post-school system.
We need to:
• Rethink the institutional funding models to ensure orientation on performance across all recognised institutional metrics, while affirming social justice narratives for those from disadvantaged communities;
• Broaden the scope of outcomes-based funding from a narrow focus on graduation and completion of degrees/programmes as success;
• Reimagine institutional environments to address student diversity. It is one thing to expect students to achieve 75% to 100% passes in all enrolled courses, while scant attention is paid to institutional environments;
• Address institutional weakness as a road map to success. While administration of NSFAS has been challenging, there is a need for institutions to revamp the skills set and competences of the teaching and lecturing staff so that all enrolled students can achieve the desired performance outcomes;
• Diversify research-based knowledge cohorts that respond to national imperatives. Governments have shown commitment to funding quality research in important fields and leveraging such strategic partnerships and collaboration among the sector role players could improve recruitment of students to the most sought after skills sets; and
• Revamp e-learning and teaching technologies, which could improve learning outcomes especially for those living in disadvantaged communities.
Fixing inherent weaknesses in our funding models for higher education and training can open more avenues for all students to access adequate funding opportunities.
• Monyooe is a Sowetan reader
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