CAPE TOWN – The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) said it’s all systems go for handling student issues following criticism related to its call centre.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) claims to have received numerous complaints from students who have been unable to access NSFAS’ call centre to follow up on their applications.
A delegation led by DA MP on Education, Chantal King, visited the NSFAS offices in Cape Town on Monday to gauge its state readiness.
READ: NSFAS hopes to clean up its image amid corruption allegations
NSFAS general manager for student support, Vuyo Mafilika, explained why some of the students were struggling to get through to their call centre.
“The call centre, on average, takes about 160 calls on average at a time. So, let’s say if there’s a student who is number 161, they will have an engaged tone and I think this is one of the reasons students have been frustrated, especially during this January period, in terms of applications season because they’re trying to call but we can’t pick them up because of the capacity we have.”
However, DA MP Karabo Khakhau was not convinced that NSFAS was ready.
“We still have students who do not know whether they’re eligible for funding or not, whether their debt from the previous academic year is going to be sorted out or not.”