Higher education institutions spent more on bursaries in 2016

South Africa’s public higher education institutions spent more on bursary funding for students in 2016 compared with 2015‚ says Statistics South Africa.

Statistician-General Pali Lehohla presented the financial statistics for 20 public universities and six universities of technology on Tuesday in Pretoria.

“Transfers to households in the form of bursaries by the University of Johannesburg‚ Nelson Mandela University and the University of Fort Hare contributed the most to the increase of R156-million in other payments by higher education institutions‚ from just above R3.1-billion in 2015 to R3.3-billion in 2016‚” the report said.

According to the report‚ institutions distributed more funds in the form of bursaries in 2016 compared to the 2015 financial year.

Overall‚ in 2015 institutions gave out at least R3.115-billion on bursaries while about R3.271-billion in bursaries was dished out to students in 2016 – about R156-million more.

The difference was “mainly due to increases in transfers to households (bursaries) by the University of Johannesburg‚ Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and the University of Fort Hare‚” stated the report.

According to the report‚ the University of Cape Town spent R524-million on bursaries‚ while the University of Stellenbosch gave its students up to R442-million‚ followed by Wits University which gave out R394-million.

All in all South Africa’s public higher education institutions had a total income from operating activities of R67.4-billion in the financial year ended 31 December 2016.