Within The Realm of Reality by Lindokuhle Mponco

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.