University of Fort Hare students have become used to attending classes on an empty stomach and many still owe tuition fees.
‘Welcome to the University of Frustration and Hunger,” a politically active student said this week, ushering the Mail & Guardian into a one-roomed building where Nelson Mandela and others launched the first branch of the ANC Youth League in 1944.
This is what University of Fort Hare students at its Alice campus have dubbed the Eastern Cape institution, iconic for having educated a number of Africa’s freedom fighters, including Mandela, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda and Julius Nyerere, the first president of Tanzania.
The sobriquet is based on what many of the current students are experiencing: a national tuition funding crisis on campus that has seen many facing hunger and the prospect of their fees not being paid.
Fort Hare opened its doors in 1916. With its main campus located in the small town of Alice, it mainly attracts students from the province’s rural areas.
Students there have waged a four-week protest and boycotted lectures this week. This was the culmination of months of allegedly inadequate funding by the state’s National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS).
Students agreed to return to class on Wednesday only after the university agreed to provide R500 a month to 1 500 students for the rest of the year.
Management had initially offered R350 for one month only, much to the students’ disapproval. “We reject [the] R350 meal allowance,” read a protest placard seen by the M&G.
Only half got loans
The NSFAS has admitted to funding only 50% of the students who qualify for its study loans across the country’s 25 universities this year. Both Medunsa in Limpopo and the Mangosuthu University of Technology outside Durban have also seen protests in recent weeks, and for similar reasons.
A primary requirement of the NSFAS is that a student should be from a family that cannot afford university fees. Fort Hare’s student leaders estimate that 2 500 students have been affected by the funding crisis on the Alice campus and another 1 200 on the East London campus. There are 10 000 students at the university.
“Our students [the 2 500 at the Alice campus] were accepted by NSFAS for 2014, but to date have not received book allowances, meal allowances or any indication that their fees will be paid. We have been told that there is no money,” said student representative council (SRC) secretary general Andile Gama.
Other students had their NSFAS meal cards blocked by university management when they returned for the second semester in July.
These students were lucky enough to have received NSFAS loans, but their R1 800 monthly food allowance was suddenly cut off in July because they had apparently exceeded their NSFAS allocations.
Fort Hare management has come under fire from students for charging fees that exceed NSFAS allocations.
100% increase
Students claim the decision to contract a private company to refurbish and manage residences has resulted in fees increasing by more than 100% over the past two years.
“For example,” said SRC deputy president Mawethu Kosani, “my residence last year cost R9 000. But when I came back this year, it cost R19 000 – without any reason. Then they say: ‘No, those residences were refurbished,’ but the only thing I see they’ve done is painting.”
About 3 000 students turned up for a mass meeting called by student leaders on Tuesday to hear how university management had responded to the 26 demands raised in their memorandum.
At the meeting they sang: “Asinamali, asisebenzi. Asisebenzi, singabafundi. Emzabalazweni [We don’t have money, we don’t work. We don’t work, we’re students. So we’re off to the struggle].”
Sikhonza Madasa, a second-year BCom accounting student, said he qualifies for NSFAS funding by virtue of having passed all his first-year modules last year. NSFAS policies require students to have passed 50% of their courses to qualify for further loans.
“As we speak, they approved my application. But they won’t pay,” Madasa said.
Meal card blocked
Final-year student Anele Gobodwana said his meal card was blocked when he returned for the second semester: “They said I’ve exceeded my funds.”
Mvuyo Tom, the university’s vice-chancellor, suggested to the M&G that the “spark of this strike” was the NSFAS.
He said Fort Hare’s figures show that more than 1 500 students have been excluded from the scheme. “It’s basically deserving students that should be paid for, but the money wasn’t sufficient to cover them.”
Regarding claims that the management’s decision to contract a private company was to blame for skyrocketing residence fees, Tom said the university had to “adjust” fees in keeping with the improved residences.
Msulwa Daca, NSFAS chief executive officer, said he had explained to Tom that the scheme “is not able to provide additional funding as we do not hold reserve funds … Throughout the year we monitor utilisation of the allocation by each university and in the event that there is underutilisation, we reallocate the funds to a university that has a shortage. Very little funding is underutilised and reallocated.”
The notion that the NSFAS first “approves” the students is incorrect. “This is the responsibility of the university, not of NSFAS,” he said. Instead, “each university receives a financial aid allocation annually from NSFAS and the university awards loans and bursaries to students. It is a reality at all public universities in South Africa that many more students apply and qualify for financial aid than can be assisted with the funds available.”
In the current model, one of the “flaws” is that university financial aid offices “continue to approve applications for financial aid after the university’s annual allocation has been depleted. In 2013, institutions exceeded their NSFAS allocations by a total of R360‑million. The University of Fort Hare exceeded its 2013 NSFAS allocation by R22‑million,” said Daca.
However, “NSFAS is in the process of replacing the current model with a new student-centred model in which students apply directly to NSFAS and NSFAS approves the application.”
The scheme “is acutely aware that the need for funding exceeds the supply. From 2003 to 2014, the funds available to assist students have increased from R 3.2‑billion to more than R9‑billion … With the expansion of the higher education sector and rising university tuition, residence and other fees, the demand for NSFAS assistance increases.”