Prospective postgraduate students ought to be familiar with ways to find information, especially if it impacts their lives personally, such as funding sources for their own studies.
At the risk of stating the obvious, one of the best places to find information about postgraduate funding is the financial aid office in each university.
The National Research Foundation (NRF), a government entity under the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), is a major provider of government postgraduate scholarships. In most universities the NRF has a Designated Authority (DA), a person, usually at the financial aid office who is assigned to deal with NRF related funding.
The NRF provides a suite of various funding opportunities for postgraduate studies. They have slightly different application requirements, depending on the level of study, field of study and other criteria. What is common about them is that they only find full-time studies.
The various funding opportunities can be viewed on the NRF website by following this link.
The contact details for queries about the scholarships are on this link to the NRF website.
Obviously only students who are admitted by universities for postgraduate studies can be funded, that is why some applications to NRF are facilitated through the university. This is the link to the application page on the NRF website.
It is important to note that while the NRF closing dates for scholarships may be generous, the applications to universities for postgraduate studies might close earlier than the NRF. A prospective postgraduate student should take it upon themselves to find out the information about the studies they intend to pursue. Having said that, for the year 2021, the closing dates for SOME of the NRF Postgraduate Scholarships applications are as follows (the full list is on this link to the NRF Website);
| Funding Opportunity | Call Opening Date | Cut off Date for DAs | Screening & Review | Funding Decision Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First-time Doctoral Scholarships (Including SARAO Doctoral Scholarships) |
8 Apr 2020 | 14 Aug 2020 | Aug – Oct 2020 | Nov 2020 |
| First-time Masters Scholarships (Including SARAO Masters Scholarships) |
8 Apr 2020 | 14 Aug 2020 | Aug – Oct 2020 | Nov 2020 |
| Honours Scholarships | 8 Apr 2020 | 18 Dec 2020 | Dec 2020 – Jan 2021 | Jan 2021 |
In case you only got to read this text after the closing date, you will have to wait for the next NRF Call for Applications, probably for 2022 studies. There is usually no funding reserved for prospective students who did not apply on time. Funding is also not usually provided on a retrospective basis, meaning it does not finance debt of postgraduate studies, it has to be applied for in advance.
The focus of this text is the Scholarships that are provided by government through the NRF Funding for 2021 . It falls upon the individual prospective students to find the information about what they intend to study. There might be other government agencies or departments that provide postgraduate funding that is targeted at specific fields of study.