Minister of Labour and Social Security Phila Buthelezi says government has set aside over E702 million for the payment of student scholarships this financial year.
This was detailed in the ministry’s first quarter performance report tabled by the minister in the House of Assembly last week.
The report is still subject to debate and adoption by the ministry’s portfolio committee.
Buthelezi said the scholarship unit continued to pay out allowances for students in some tertiary institutions.
He said for the first quarter, a total of E21 958 443.51 had been paid with respect to student allowances.
He said this was against a total budget of E702 048794 covering meals, accommodation, personal allowance, uniform, teaching practice, project and internship allowance, books and field allowance.
He said the balance budget at the end of the quota under review was E680 090 350 to cater for similar expenses for a student population of 13 547 for the financial and academic year 2025/2026.
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“Parliament will note that since the disruption of academic calendars in local tertiary institutions owing to COVID-19, the political unrest in 2021 and subsequent other disruptions in learning, local tertiary institutions no longer follow standard academic calendars as before. Currently, individual institutions follow academic calendars unique to each of them according to their operations and needs at the time,” stated the minister.
Buthelezi said this had resulted in the payment of student allowances to be scheduled according to the calendars of each institution, hence some students may be paid allowances while others are not, depending on eligibility. The minister said student allowances were paid over a 10-month period; making an academic year.
He said it may happen that some institutions may have longer academic months than the standard 10 months. Adding, the minister reported that in such instances, the ministry would as policy requires, pay out only the 10 months student allowances and not more, even where an academic year for whatever reasons, has drawn longer than 10 months.
Buthelezi added that for the period under review, a total of E13 172868.51 was consumed catering for tuition, registration and foreign levy and interest charges for students studying outside the country.
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