The National Student Financial Aid Scheme ("NSFAS") is a public entity, governed by the NSFAS Act, the Public Finance Management Act ("PFMA") and regulated by the PFMA and Treasury Regulations. NSFAS offers bursaries to limited tertiary institutions which aids in the costs of tuition, accommodation, equipment, food and/or traveling expenses.

NSFAS has recently introduced the requirement that accommodation is to be accredited. Accreditation allows for the continuation of accommodation allowances for a student. If a student cannot accredit their accommodation or find accredited accommodation, that student will no longer receive an accommodation allowance.

While the requirement may be reasonable with regards to ensuring that housing meets the necessary requirements for a student, it is by no means inclusive of the challenges a student may face in accrediting their accommodation. If a condition is not met or a landlord is not co-operative in the necessary procedures, a student could be without accommodation for the academic year.

It stands that if your accommodation is not accredited, one should simply find one that is. The problem here lies in the number of willing landlords, as well as accommodations which fit the strict requirements, versus the number of NSFAS students in a given University which need accommodation to fulfil their studies successfully.

Accommodation which has served NSFAS students in the past can no longer offer accommodation to such students due to the requirement of accreditation. Such accommodation is not necessarily unfit for student housing, as should be seen in having housed NSFAS students, but rather does not meet NSFAS's criteria of a suitable student accommodation.

NSFAS's mission statement states itself as an efficient and effective provider of financial aid for students, hereby allowing access and success in the pursuit of tertiary education and South Africa’s national and human resource development goals. 

The problem with the accreditation requirement is conflicts in providing efficient and effective aid, as well as allowing a student to achieve success. If a student does not have housing near the university, that student will struggle to attend lectures and be involved in student activities.

While accreditation aims at offering student's 'appropriate' accommodation, it effectively creates more problems than it solves. If NSFAS aims in allowing success and accessibility for students to tertiary institutions, it would thus be unreasonable to pass a requirement which restricts more students than it would allow in attending their lectures.

I, as well as those who sign this petition, thus call for NSFAS to reconsider such a requirement and ultimately waver the need of accreditation.