The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has called on beneficiary students to use its online portal to order their laptop devices.
This comes as the NSFAS is expected to receive the first batch of laptops on 18 April, following thelong drawn-out process to supply students with electronic devices to aid their studies.
As part of the COVID-19 pandemic relief efforts, government last year promised to procure laptops for all NSFAS qualifying students in universities and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges.
In a statement this week, NSFAS says funded students registered at a public university and TVET colleges can now place their orders for the laptops.
In line with the laptop delivery process, the government student financial aid scheme set up a portal for qualifying NSFAS students to order their devices on the NSFAS Web site.
“All NSFAS-funded students who require a device can visit www.nsfas.org.za, click myNSFAS, and click the online order portal to place an order. To complete the order, students need to agree to the terms and conditions,” says NSFAS chief corporate services officer Sibongile Mncwabe.
According to NSFAS, students are required to provide their South African ID number, student number, contact details, name of the institution where they are registered, the campus name and home address.
It further indicates that non-NSFAS-funded students, who require a device, should consult their institutions as they will remain responsible for the payment of the device and must therefore agree to the payment terms as defined by the institution.
“Since the directive of the minister [Dr Blade Nzimande], NSFAS has gone into several consultations with stakeholders to ensure the successful rollout of this process. Consultations with the university sector have neared completion, allowing university NSFAS-funded students to commence ordering their devices through our portal.
“We are speedily continuing with the TVET consultation to enable college NSFAS-funded students to also submit their orders online,” says Mncwabe.
NSFAS adds that further updates on progress will be communicated in the coming weeks.
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