Prospective students applying for Nsfas funding. Prospective students applying for Nsfas funding.
DURBAN - The National National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has extended the deadline for online applications until Sunday midnight. This was in a bid to give applicants with missing supporting documents time to supply them to the financial aid scheme.
Initially, the deadline for all submission for students seeking funding at public tertiary institutions for 2019 academic year was set to Friday. Due to over 50 000 applicants that required supporting documents or are having to re-submit due to the poor quality of the documents submitted, the date had to be extended, NSFAS said on Friday.
NSFAS national spokesperson Kagisho Mamabolo said they would keep their system open for online applications over the weekend until midnight on Sunday, December 02. He said the weekend window should be used as an opportunity for those with missing supporting documents to submit.
“We encourage all new applicants to ensure that they attach all the necessary documents the first time – (certified copies of ID for both parents/guardians and the applicant, proof of income, and signed a consent form).
“The NSFAS website will stop accepting the online application at midnight on Sunday and no late applications will be received thereafter.
This weekend extension is only applicable to online applications and not applicable to applications that are dropped at the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) nationwide. Prospective students wishing to apply for NSFAS should do so by visiting our website,” Mamabolo said.
He said NSFAS application portal is handling over 5000 users simultaneously, who can all submit their applications within 10 minutes from the period they login into the MyNsfas self-service portal.
“At present, we have 50 000 we hope that applicants will use this weekend to ensure that they submit everything required so that their funding decision is not delayed. Those that must re-submit documents should do so speedily,” he added.