By Albertina Nakale
WINDHOEK– Existing bottlenecks among loan and grant holder students in their quest to access tertiary education at various institutions of higher learning will soon be a thing of the past as the Namibia Students Financial Assistance Fund (NSFAF) continues to seal deals with institutions of higher learning to allow students to register or sit for exams even if they have outstanding fees.
Over the past few years, institutions of higher learning have been turning away student loan holders during registration and when they have to sit for their exams because the government had not yet released funds to such institutions.
The fund has awarded close to 13 000 students financial assistance to study at 14 learning institutions.
In March, NSFAF already entered into an agreement with the Polytechnic of Namibia. Last week on Tuesday, NSFAF signed a similar MoU with the private-owned International University of Management (IUM).
The fund now plans to enter into an agreement with the University of Namibia (Unam).
IUM Vice- Chancellor Virginia Namwandi welcomed the move, saying the MoU will go a long way in assisting students.
“For us it has been tradition that once a student has an award letter from NSFAF, we never stand in their way to register or sit for exams. What we are doing today is just formalising what has been existing already,” she said.
She however noted that the MoU is not static, adding that it should be active to address issues regarding students as they arise.
Dr Stephanie van der Walt the NSFAF Deputy CEO said following the reform of the fund and its subsequent detachment from the Ministry of Education to become an autonomous institution, it has been on a drive to become relevant and responsive to students’ needs.
“This we have been doing and continue to do by re-aligning our strategic focus through the placing of students’ satisfaction on top of our ‘to do list’ and further classifying students as our primary customers and the reasons for our existence,” she said.
“The MoU came about as a product of a consultative process … and it aims at ending the grave uncertainties and inconveniences that NSFAF-sponsored students continue to face at registration and during examination sessions (being denied access to registration and examinations) as a result of unpaid fees at given points in time,” she said.
In terms of the MoU, IUM will allow NSFAF-sponsored students to register without paying a deposit on tuition fees, attend classes, sit for exams and subsequently release their results even if NSFAF has not yet paid their tuition fees.
Equally, NSFAF is taking liability for all fees owed to IUM by its sponsored students and is committing to pay within reasonable time as the parties may agree from time to time after the tabling of the national budget.