The Department of Social Development (DSD) and the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) will hold a joint media briefing on January 10, 2017 led by the Minister of Social Development, Ms Bathabile Dlamini, to announce how NSFAS will assist Social grant beneficiaries who pass their matric and are accepted at institutions of higher learning.

In 2016, DSD partnered with the Department of Basic Education (DBE) and NSFAS in an effort to ensure that poor and vulnerable learners have access to funding to further their studies by doing away with the means test for social grant beneficiaries.

A data matching process of DSD and DBE (Lurits and Socpen) indicated that 188 687 grant recipients sat down for the 2016 Matric exams, 173 085 were Child Support Grant recipients, 14 926 were Foster Child Grant recipients and 676 were Care Dependency Grant recipients.

The collaboration (DBE; DSD and NSFAS) is aligned to the Protocol Agreement on Linking Social Protection Administrative Data Systems for Poor and Vulnerable Learners with the aim to track, locate and improve the wellbeing of poor and vulnerable learners with a basket of Social protection services.

The media briefing is scheduled as follows:
Date: Tuesday, 10 January 2017 
Time: 10h00  
Venue: 1035 Tshedimosetso House - Cnr Frances Baard and Festival streets in Hatfield– Pretoria        
NB: There will be a video link to Imbizo Media Centre –120 Plein Street, Parliament, Cape Town
RSVPs: Mr Jaconia Kobue - 073 026 1111 / Jaconiak@dsd.gov.za or Mr Justice Malapane on 079 4977 426 / JusticeD@dsd.gov.za