The effectiveness of national financial aid scheme towards student skills development at the University of Limpopo, South Africa

Abstract

The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) was introduced in South Africa in 1999. Despite two decades of implementation—and some notable successes—the NSFAS has been critiqued for its overall “effectiveness” (McKay, Naidoo & Simpson 2018:25-27). This study investigated the effectiveness of NSFAS from the perspective of skills development among students at the University of Limpopo (UL). The study used a qualitative research design which purposively selected participants using a semi-structured interview instrument. The purposive sampling included nine NSFAS beneficiaries from the Faculties of Management and Law and Science and Agriculture and six NSFAS administrators working at UL. The study applied thematic analysis to analyse the collected data. The analysis enabled insights into the effectiveness of NSFAS on skills development among a limited sample at UL to be presented. The findings suggest that NSFAS funding contributes towards soft-skills development of student beneficiaries. There was less evidence that NSFAS funding contributed to hard-skills development. The study recommends that UL could introduce a number of measures to reinforce the soft-skills development that NSFAS catalysed such as internal mentorship schemes for students and/or engaged collaborations with non-academic partners to reinforce the soft-skills components of students learning experience. Due to the localised nature and small size it is suggested that further research is warranted into the impact of NSFAS on students soft-skills development at a broader scale. During the research process, the ethical rules and regulations dictated by the Turfloop Research and Ethics Committee (TREC) were complied with and the suggested protocols of the experiences of educational researchers in the use of case study design during the COVID-19 pandemic were also observed and adhered to.