House Chair, Deputy Minister, I am glad that you are mention the word National Review Plan. In terms of NSFAS there is an added problem right now. You are now giving these monies directly to the students which I have alluded to yesterday. A great percentage of that money is not going towards education anymore and I think there has been a report on the sale of textbooks which has dropped by 60 to 80%.
In part of this review plan, will you consider relooking at whether an amount should be given directly to students or put in measures to ensure there is greater control over it?
The DEPUTY MINISTER OF HIGHER EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY:
House Chairperson, firstly, the information that member relies on is information that mainly comes from the publishers. There has also been innuendos and anecdotes that people have been throwing around without any substantial evidence to suggest that the allowances that we give directly to students on a monthly basis is going into education. This is akin to the anecdotes that have been made for instance, as it is raised to South African Social
Security Agency, Sassa, payment grants. As is the case now, there is not evidence that the money that has been given to students is going to everything other than education.
However, we are prepared to the results because that is what we are very much interested in. We know that the student leadership, the university and TVET colleges management have committed to work together with us in ensuring that we improve the results of students particularly those who are receiving bursaries. I must also indicate that in the past there have been various ways and means within which students - even though there were given vouchers or as bucks and all of that, they always found a way to manipulate and defraud the system. We are obviously also open to whatever suggestions which may come up which will lead to student using whatever monies for education purposes. Thank you.