Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Previous Archive
31 August 2018
Application for 2019 NSFAS funding now open

Government has set up the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) to provide students with financial assistance to cover the cost for registration and tuition and to provide them with allowances for books, food, transport, and accommodation.

Students may apply if they comply with the following criteria:

• You are a South African citizen with a household income of R350 000 or less, you are registered at this institution, and have not been approved for NSFAS funding in 2018
• You are a South African citizen with a household income of R350 000 or less, you are registered at this institution, but have not applied for NSFAS funding before
• You are a South African citizen with a household income of R350 000 or less and you plan to study at a public university or TVET College in 2019 and require funding

Make sure that you have certified and valid copies of the following documents before attempting to apply for funding:

• Your South African identity document/card (or an unabridged birth certificate (if you are younger than 16 years old)
• ID of parents and/or guardian (or death certificate where applicable)
• Pay advice/letter of employment/pension advice stating income (SASSA slips are not required and SASSA should not be included as household income)
A completed and signed consent form must be filled in with your parent’s/guardian’s signatures. Applications without a consent form signed by all people whose incomes have been declared in the application will not be accepted and will be considered incomplete
• If you have a disability, please download the Disability Annexure A, complete it, and submit it with your application

NB: The stamp on all certified documents should not be older than three months

PLEASE NOTE – YOUR APPLICATION WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED IF:
You have already applied for 2019 on www.nsfas.org.za and have an application reference number.

You already have NSFAS funding for 2018.

You already have an undergraduate degree/diploma or postgraduate degree other than the postgraduate qualifications listed below, which you may apply for: 

• BTech – Architecture/Architectural Technology 
• BTech – Engineering (all disciplines), Cartography, Forestry
• BTech – Biokinetics, Biomedical Technology, Biotechnology
• BTech – Chiropractic, Homoeopathy, all Nursing
• BTech – Clinical or Dental Technology, Emergency Medical Care
• Postgraduate Certificate in Education
• Postgraduate Diploma in Accounting
• LLB
 
Applicants may make use of the computer lab on campus to apply and may also contact the Financial Aid office on campus for assistance with their 2019 applications.

You may call the NSFAS Contact Centre on 08 000 67327

News Archive

UFS committed to a two-language model
2010-08-13

  Prof. Jonathan Jansen

The University of the Free State (UFS) will continue to use a two-language model while it builds capacity for research and teaching in Sotho languages.

This was announced by the Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS, Prof. Jonathan Jansen, when he delivered the 29th DF Malherbe Memorial Lecture on the Main Campus in Bloemfontein yesterday, on the topic: The politics and prospects of Afrikaans, and Afrikaans schools and universities.

“In the course of time black students will learn Afrikaans, white students will learn Sesotho, and all students will learn decent English,” he said.

“Classes will remain in English and Afrikaans, especially in the first years of study. Dual-medium classrooms will break down the racial isolation where outstanding university teachers are comfortable in both languages. Parallel-medium classes will exist where large numbers enable such a facility.”

He said schools and higher education institutions that continue to use language as an instrument of exclusion, rather than inclusion, would remain “culturally and linguistically impoverished”. He said the future of Afrikaans in these institutions lay in its inter-dependence and co-existence with other languages.

“A strong two-language model of education, whether in the form of double- or parallel-medium instruction within a racially integrated campus environment is the only way in which Afrikaans can and should flourish in a democratic South Africa,” he said.

“It is the only model that resolves two problems at the same time: the demand for racial equity, on the one hand, and the demand for language recognition, on the other hand.”

He said the idea of an exclusively Afrikaans university was a “dangerous” one.

“It will lock up white students in a largely uni-racial and uni-lingual environment, given that the participation rates in higher education for Afrikaans-speaking black students are and for a long time will remain very low,” he said.

“This will be a disaster for many Afrikaans-speaking students for it will mean that the closed circles of social, cultural and linguistic socialization will remain uninterrupted from family to school to university.

“Rather than prepare students for a global world marked by language flexibility and cultural diversity, students will remain locked into a sheltered racial environment at the very stage where most South African students first experience the liberation of the intellect and the broadening of opportunities for engaging with the world around them.

“The choice at the Afrikaans universities, therefore, must never be a choice between Afrikaans and English; it must be both.”

Media Release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Director: Strategic Communication (actg)
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell:   083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl@ufs.ac.za
13 August 2010

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept