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NSFAS: A National Crisis

                        By: Dorcas Mbuyi  

The struggles most students face during and after graduation. A picture of the University of Free State, Bloemfontein campus.

 

Success has many definitions depending on how we perceive it. Whether you are a straight-A student or not, success plays a vital role in students' lives. However, we grew up or were taught that to get the best jobs, you needed to be a top-performing student. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case today, top performing students are sitting at home with degrees and no jobs. What is the purpose of spending years fighting for a qualification that will get you nowhere? I believe that many students are studying and fearing whether once they cross that stage, they will be able to find employment. According to Stats SA, in the first quarter of the year 2023, 32,9 % of people are said to be unemployed in South Africa (https://tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/unemployment-rate). South Africa happens to have the highest unemployment rate in the world. What I need for us to understand is that our definition of success doesn’t necessarily qualify us. We are taught to ‘work hard’ yet we find ourselves drained, not only for working hard trying to obtain the degree but also working hard to find means to pay for our tuition fees. Moreover, success and employment are the keys that most students strive to get in order to feel complete.

 

According to Cambridge Dictionary, “success is the achieving of results wanted or hoped for”. The second definition is, “something that achieves positive results”.  According to the General Household survey 2017stastics.pdf, statistics show that only 33.8% of the youth aged between 18-24 were able to attend educational institutions while only 22,2% were attending school. Of the ones who were attending educational institutions, more than half (51%) argued that they were not financially capable of paying tuition fees. This is the case even today (2023) there are students unable to pay their tuition and some end up dropping out. According to Minister Blade Nzimande, he explains that out of 100 students who start school from grade 1-12, only 6 out of 100 manage to complete their education with a degree (https://www.careersportal.co.za/news/half-of-university-students-drop-out-in-first-year).

 

Fast-forward to 2023, with the eZaga protests, have left more students with questions that needed answers and most students were without food. How does one succeed in such conditions? Students are marching to the Union Building to request that the minister of higher education and training Blade Nzimande, fix the NSFAS defunding crisis. Again, this proves my point of how much students need to go through for a basic right such as education. Evidently, our government is failing the youth, while studying to obtain a degree so that you are deemed ‘important’ in society, we are faced with challenges that hold us back from graduating. How are some students defunded? Who gets to pick whether or not some students are worth funding? This leads us to a word so many South Africans are used to, ‘corruption’. According to Minister Blade Nzimande in 2014, it was said that some NSFAS officials were rewarding funding to students who were not registered to receive the financial aid. As you may think, it automatically causes chaos, students are frustrated and with all of this, we battle with unemployment. It is unfortunate that we don’t take the time to realize that behind every degree is a student who fought emotionally, financially, spiritually, and mostly physically to obtain it. However, even after all that, there’s still another battle waiting for us called, ‘finding a job’.  

 

According to BUSINESSTECH, it was found that the graduate unemployment rate was 33,5% for youths aged between 15-24 while for those aged between 25-34, it was 10,2%. As I student myself, I believe that more needs to be done on the government’s side. The youth is the future, however that future is not looking bright at the moment. May the voices of the youth be heard and taken into consideration, for without the youth the country cannot thrive.

 

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