The stone-cold reality we must face is that in as much as the Accommodation Plan of NSFAS is inherently prone to the pitfalls of Neoliberalism, it remains a much better option than the unregulated and unguarded system which year in and year out would lead to students suffering at the hands of landlords. This does not mean the current system has not made that reality dwindle into the realm of obscurity, but rather has accelerated the realization that we have a national accommodation crisis. It has affected other institutions worse than others, however, at University of Fort Hare, East London Campus the crisis has been minimal. The number of students that are affected is negligible, even though there is a populist and unrealistic demand made by a minority of the student populace of a proposal for deviation to NSFAS; given the character of the East London Campus. This cohort of students in this regard have conveniently forgotten that in any case, the University of Fort Hare was going to adopt an accreditation policy due to numerous fraud complaints lodged against the institution. This article seeks to patiently explain the reason why a deviation is scientifically impossible, and in future will even be out of the realm of possibility if the current system continues to be mismanaged.
PROSPECTS
FOR A DEVIATION IN EAST LONDON CAMPUS
The
prospects for a deviation in East London Campus are slim to none given the
scientific reality of students being largely accommodated either by the NSFAS
Pilot project or the institution's leased accommodation system. The number of
students accommodated by these two streams of accommodation surpass 6200 out of
7665 students registered and studying in East London Campus. This means that
over 1000 students are living at home or staying in unaccredited accommodation.
Those staying in unaccredited accommodation have been staying in such
accommodation for a variety of reasons. Some with the hope that the
accommodation will be accredited, and some with the hope that non-Res
allowances will eventually be disbursed due to the imminent collapse of the
system, and a possibility of a deviation being entertained for East London
Campus. It is important for a revolutionary to give a realistic assessment of
issues. Those who know very well know that this duty is not a duty which is to
be half-done but must be done fully.
The
idea of rejecting the NSFAS Accreditation system was not just an idea for the
SRC of 2023/24 but something that we materially advanced to a point whereby
NSFAS admitted the flaws in their system and gave the institution the autonomy
to select and reject, and ultimately allocate students to those residences
which would meet the cut. While other institutions across the country in
similar scenarios and bigger metropolitans were struggling to manage the
crisis, we managed to liquidate the issue, unlike the outgone Buffalo City TVET College SRC. Their SRC lacked the tactical nous
and ability to leverage as many buildings as they can, given the number of bed
spaces available in the NSFAS portal. Walter Sisulu University also managed the
crisis better due to a tactical nous and ability that saw this issue being
liquidated. The honest assessment derived from this crisis was that
institutions must be given autonomy. This is why there are struggles with
payments because NSFAS does not have a system that is yet capacitated to deal
with this at a central level. NSFAS envisages a fully automated and seamless
system when they know very well, they have outsourced the processing of
payments to various companies in various regions, like the Direct Payment
system. This is where the problem is, the bottleneck lies with payments as of
now, even though we can also cite the inadequacies of the evaluation committee
and the envisaged seamless 'artificial intelligence' powered assessment system.
Those areas leave much to be desired and are points to be improved upon by
capacitating NSFAS with the ability to do these processes without outsourcing
them to an IT solutions company which will derive profit.
This
brings us to the final point of the possibility of deviation given these unique
conditions of metro which has over 110 and counting accredited properties that
can house every NSFAS student that is outstanding at the University of Fort
Hare. The final point lies in the fact that it is possible but the condition in
the remaining accommodations is not ideal in the most part, while some are
quite far and leave us with another problem of stretching an already severely
limited shuttle service. Given the following realities, deviation is not possible given these reasons:
1.
Negligible numbers of students not living in accredited accommodation.
2.
Few numbers of affected beneficiaries
3.
Potential availability of bed spaces to plug the gap.
This
gives the prospects of deviation a near to impossible outcome. This is against
the background that an argument of this nature was raised in a meeting between
the SRC, NSFAS, Residence Department, and Financial Aid. On the objective
analysis of the facts, figures, and statistics it was proven that it was
scientifically not possible to deviate given the number of students who would
have been accommodated after the approval of an additional 1100 beds and
another additional +/- 500 beds to plug the shortage. This managed to minimize
the number of those without accommodation. It put us in a position whereby we
can carefully identify the gaps and the pitfalls of the system to the ones I
have characterized as NSFAS oriented issues (Payment processes, and evaluation
of accommodation providers). The argument for a deviation can only makes sense
if there is a crisis which affects the overwhelming majority to a point whereby
the system within the Institution is untenable. This is the case in BCC TVET
College. NSFAS did their own investigation and found that for BCC the system
was way below optimal. It is this subjective reality in BCC TVET College which
has spurned a possibility for non-Res allowances. In UFH EL-Campus, the
material conditions do not favour a deviation given the proof that many
landlords in any case applied to be accommodation providers for UFH. Some were
allocated to other institutions because of the radius requirement. This mean
that if a building is close to a certain campus, it will be allocated to that
campus of that institution. This led to clashes between SRCs and institutions
because some of these buildings would be under the lease tenure of another
institution. This is the greed of landlords being laid bare by unmasked
neoliberal system.
LET'S
FACE REALITY!
A
Marxist understands two things about the material conditions. The first thing
is that material conditions change with the constant move of time and the
shifts within the space which is caused by dynamic developments. These dynamic
developments are a consequence of the dialectical development of matter, and
the constant flow of quantity to quality, and in some cases regressions which
lead negations of negations. The second that is that material conditions can
only be changed if the dynamic developments align with the flow of matter not
just objectively but subjectively too. If the subjective conditions do not favour
a particular flow, that flow will not reach its destination. The subjective
conditions in East London do not favour a deviation, and at best they favour
transport allowances. This is a process which will be brought to finality
within the next 21 days. This is due to the need to assess the claim made for
such given the number of students accommodated. The humble admission that can
be made is that in this regard there has been a lacklustre pressure point from
the Office I occupy, and this will be rectified with the intention of closing
all NSFAS Financial Related matters in bulk. Even though one is always on the
lookout for any new problem that might arise, while there are minimal issues,
we must tackle them and eliminate them so that we are not submerged by
historical issues.
In
our understanding of assessing material conditions, we can see that the
dynamics on ground do not favour us deviating from the current system. What can
be done is to assess the slowness of the approval of the accommodations that
are still waiting to be approved, while disbursing transport allowance to those
that need it. The reality is that whether NSFAS had launched the pilot project
nationally, the East London Campus would have still been grappling with the
question of accredited accommodation. The need for such was accelerated by the
NBS building saga which saw over 38 students stranded, and without
accommodation. This was not the only incident but many incidents where
landlords and tenants would dispute the question of deposits that need to be
paid back and various other payment issues. The question of having such a
policy was long overdue. This is because of many abuses students faced that the
policy could address. The reality is that we have a system that is flawed,
imperfect but still workable, and can be made better if the following can be
done:
1.
Decentralizing the whole system and allow institutions to run the process
2.
Give institutions the autonomy to select, reject, and allocate students to the
building that meet requirements.
3.
Have a NSFAS representative deployed to every institution to work with the
respective Residence Department and Financial Aid Office to administrate and
manage the system given that maintenance and safety issues are continuous.
4.
The Evaluation Committee must have a sub-committee which will operate at an
institutional level which must consist of a delegation from the SRC, Residence
Department, and Financial Aid to do the evaluation, and then recommend to
NSFAS.
5.
Payments for Accommodation must be made by the Institution once a verifiable
database is developed and is operational. NSFAS must pay the institutions, and
the Institutions must pay the landlords.
In
this way, we will curb the crises, while we formulate a plan to Nationalize
student accommodation provision, as this is supposed to be the competency of
the state in the first place.
