VerifiedPhysiotherapy is one of the few health professions in South Africa with a genuine private practice route straight after qualifying. That changes the funding question: a provincial bursary will bond you to the public sector for as many years as it funded you, which is a real cost if private practice is the plan.
Work out what the bond is before you accept, not after.
Registration and community service
You register with the HPCSA Professional Board for Physiotherapy, Podiatry and Biokinetics. Physiotherapy was among the professions brought into compulsory community service from 2003, and it is on the current list, so the remunerated year comes before independent practice whether or not you hold a bursary.
Biokinetics sits on the same board but is a different qualification and is not on the community service list. If you are drawn to the sport and exercise side rather than the clinical side, that is a different degree with a different funding picture.
Bursaries for physiotherapy
- Gauteng Department of Health
- KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health
- North West Provincial Government
- Compensation Fund, for the rehabilitation side
- Mediclinic and ER24
- ISFAP
- Garden Cities
ISFAP is the one to read carefully here. It funds occupations on the national list of those in high demand and covers the gap between what NSFAS pays and what a degree actually costs, which is the gap that catches most health science students in third and fourth year.
See also our occupational therapy bursaries and orthotics and prosthetics bursaries pages.