MyPE

Community Business Directory, Event Listings, News and Views from Gqeberha, Nelson Mandela Bay

TVET Students on NSFAS bursaries being charged unlawful registration fees at Lovedale College

By

Dear MyPE

The DA has learnt that students at Lovedale TVET College Alice on NSFAS bursaries are being charged unlawful registration fees by the college, at up to R1,000.00 per semester.

These NSFAS students are also being made to pay for their campus accommodation, which should be provided to them at no cost.

I have therefore today written to Minister Blade Nzimande to request that he investigates this unlawful practice and reports to Parliament on his findings.

The DA believes that TVET colleges must be places of educational excellence, for South Africans both who can and who cannot afford to pay fees. They must welcome NSFAS students, instead of exploiting them and robbing them of their limited financial means.

During an oversight visit which I conducted at the Lovedale TVET College Alice campus on Monday, 3 August 2015, students told me that all NSFAS Bursary beneficiaries were made to pay an upfront fee of over R1000 to register at Lovedale, and an additional fee in the second semester.

Yet as soon as the management at Lovedale became uncomfortable with the information I was obtaining from students, they obstructed my oversight and forced me off campus with insults and profanities and threats of expulsion to students.

Clearly Lovedale TVET College Alice has a lot to hide.

Regards

Yusuf Cassim

The following two tabs change content below.

Port Elizabethan

This author is a 'catch-all' for occasional articles and letters written to MyPE. The Author of each article can be found in the signature at the bottom of each individual article.