EFF REJECTS PROPOSED 6% CAP ON UNIVERSITY FEE INCREMENT

20 October 2015

The EFF rejects the agreement reached by the Minister of Higher Education Blade Nzimande together with university managers that fee increments will not exceed 6% this year. Nzimande has gone ahead and spoken to managers without consulting the student movement that has put our universities into standstill. His decision to negotiate with universities without students on the table is not only undemocratic but it undermines their voice as a community.

Government should be announcing plans for the realization of no fee universities. It should ask universities how much is the cost of fees for all students and provide the money for all academically deserving students. At the moment universities are estimating that student fees contribute R20 billion to their funding needs. This means that if government provides this funding, universities will not charge any fees for next year.

Nhlanhla Nene, in his Medium Term Budget Statement should therefore announce that government will be providing this money. It is indeed achievable taken the under-expenditure of many departments at both national and provincial government level, as well as many inefficiencies.

In addition we know for a fact that white monopoly capital is engaged in illicit financial flows that cost the South African revenue base an estimate of R385 billion, according to the Joint African Union and United Nations Economic Commission High Level Panel Report on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa led by Thabo Mbeki. Nene should therefore also announce plans on how to recover this tax which is being stolen by multinationals in our country so as to avail some of it for free education.

The fee situation that students are raising is a reflection that the neoliberal macroeconomic policies that have shaped higher education funding have failed. The students are demanding a no fee increment and this can only be realized by rethinking the entire funding structure of universities.

Students demand no fee increment, not some fee increment and they are justified to make this demand. Education must never be a commodity in the first place. It must be treated with the same respect as the right to life. It is the right without which living is meaningless and renders our democracy empty.

EFF further supports the National Day of Action taking place tomorrow by students across the country. We urge workers, lecturers and all other South Africans to join in the demonstrations for a no fee university. Nothing is more urgent, more important and absolutely fundamental than the education of our youth.

Statement issued by the Economic Freedom Fighters, 20 October 2015