N$2bn spent on free varsity education but challenges persist

Government has spent N$2 billion so far on subsidised tertiary education through the Namibia Students Financial Assistance Fund (NSFAF), education minister Sanet Steenkamp revealed last week amid growing concerns over delayed student allowances.

Steenkamp said the N$2 billion had been paid towards funding for both continuing and new-intake students.

However, she warned that non-tuition payments for continuing students will stop in October, while payments for new-intake students will continue until March 2027.

“For continuing, we will stop paying them in October 2026,” Steenkamp told parliament last week.

Her response came after concerns were raised over students who had not received their non-tuition allowances and were reportedly facing eviction and financial hardship.

Steenkamp said NSFAF had received 56 075 applications this year, of which 38 419 had been approved for funding.

A further 9 325 students were required to resubmit documents, 1 845 applications were still undergoing validation, while 6 416 applications had been unsuccessful because of non-compliance, ineligibility or a lack of credible supporting documents.

The minister said N$1.3 billion had been paid for continuing students, including N$445.2 million in non-tuition allowances.

For new-intake students, she said N$770 million had been disbursed, including an advance paid to public and private institutions at the beginning of the year for tuition.

Steenkamp said non-tuition payments to new-intake students are handled differently from tuition payments, with allowances paid in monthly instalments rather than as a full annual amount upfront.

She said payments for new-intake students had been made for April, May, June, July and August and would continue monthly until March 2027.

For continuing students, however, the non-tuition payments will end next month.

Workload outpaces staff

Steenkamp attributed the pressure on the system partly to the sharp increase in applications, saying the workload had grown significantly while staffing levels had not increased accordingly.

“We have a workload that has increased, and you've got staff and human resources that have not increased,” she said.

She added that only 25 interns had been available to assist with the increased workload.

The minister’s explanation followed questions in parliament about why students were still experiencing delays despite government having announced an additional N$247 million injection into NSFAF to help clear the backlog.

Steenkamp said the validation and award-processing process remained ongoing, partly because new applications continued to stream in.

The ministry opened a third application period from 7 September to 7 October for eligible students who are enrolled at universities but had not previously applied for NSFAF funding.

Cash released

Three months ago, Steenkamp said delays in student allowance payments were caused by universities submitting invoices only in April, forcing government to begin processing non-tuition benefits months into the academic year.

Steenkamp said while government successfully covered registration and tuition fees at the start of the academic year, non-tuition payments were dependent on invoices.

“Only in April did we receive the invoices from the institutions because they were also busy with registrations until the end of March,” she said at the time.

The minister noted that N$156 million was advanced to institutions at the start of the year without invoices to ensure students could register and institutions could continue operating.

Since then, an additional N$122 million has been paid towards tuition and registration costs, N$30 million towards non-tuition support for about 6 436 continuing students, and N$3 million for outstanding obligations from the previous academic year.

Government also injected N$247 million into the system to accelerate student payments.

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