Hundreds of Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) students in Tshwane have now gone back to their residences, this after being kicked out of the said residences by landlords who had not received payment from NSFAS.
Early on Friday morning the students, with their luggages and all belongings, converged at the headquarters of the Department of Basic Education in Tshwane where they staged a picket in demand for NSFAS to pay for their accommodation at residences from which they had been expelled.
The aggrieved students told Tshwane Talks that the landlords had been tolerating NSFAS’ failure to pay for student accommodation for a long time now and on August 2, the said landlords started kicking them out of various residences in and around Tshwane.
The students belong to various campuses of Tshwane North College like Soshanguve North, Soshanguve South and Pretoria.
“All that the landlords want is a written assurance from NSFAS that it will pay for our accommodation,” said one student who expressed frustration regarding NSFAS’ failure to pay for students’ accommodation.
“Female students are worse off because after being kicked out of their respective residences they were fired to seek shelter at the hones of strangers and boyfriend’s and incidents of rape on these female students have already been reported,” he said.
According to the students, NSFAS made verbal agreements with the landlords to pay for the students accommodation since April 2021 but has so far failed to do so.
“Up to now we only receive R1 300 a month from NSFAS but nothing for accommodation,” griped another student who pointed out that TVET students are treated shamefully as compared to university students who get everything paid on time and regularly.
“This system of forcing TVET students to go and live at so-called accredited residences doesn’t work because owners of these residences don’t have pity on us and are quick to kick us out whenever NSFAS fails to pay for our accommodation,” she said.
She then explained that all along they had been living as tenants at various backrooms in the townships of Soshanguve and the owners of these houses always understood when they couldn’t pay for accommodation due to NSFAS’ failure to send them money for accommodation.
“I was staying at a private accommodation but NSFAS for Ed all if us to move to the accredited residences after signing agreements with the landlords if those residences, but now NSFAS itself is failing to pay those landlords and those landlords have kicked us out,” said another student.
The students lamented the fact that they couldn’t write their exams strating yesterday as that is when the landlords started evicting them en masse from their various residences.
“We slept in the open outside the residences from which we had been evicted and they us why today we decided that we must come here at the offices of the Department of Basic Education to force NSFAS to pay the landlords fir our accommodation so that we can again have a place to stay,” said the student.
He conceded that for some time now the landlords have offered them accommodation and meals even though NSFAS was failing to pay them and that the landlords can’t take it anymore now and have decided to evict them.
Later on, Friday a meeting was arranged between NSFAS, landlords and students whereby it was agreed that NSFAS would pay the landlords the students accommodation money that it owes them.
After the meeting one of the students who was part of the negotiations told Tshwane Talks that the Director General if Education had made an intervention and urged the landlords to again accommodate the students by promising to pay them during the next payment roll of the department.