WATCH | Registration, debt and extensions: main talking points from Nzimande's NSFAS briefing

Higher education minister Blade Nzimande addressed the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) funding shortfall on Thursday, a day after a man died in the student protests in Braamfontein.

Nzimande touched on many issues around student funding, such as debt, registration extensions, who qualifies and also what seems like the main question: why are we only speaking about this in March?

He explained that because of the domino affect of Covid-19, the university year ended later than usual in 2020, meaning they were only able to round out the amount needed a little later than usual in 2021.

The minister emphasised that the briefing happened not only in response to the recent protests but in fact the issues had been under discussion for months.

TimesLIVE