Higher Education budget: another stop-gap measure

26 October 2016

Just as was the case a year ago, the Minister of Finance has put forward a short-term financial solution to the fees crisis in Universities. In effect he has added NEW funding of R1.45bn to the 2016 budget and R5bn to the 2017 allocation.

Of this R2.6bn goes to cover the so called “no fee increase” for all students with family incomes lower than R600 000 per annum, as announced by Minister Nzimande in September. 

In addition he has topped up NSFAS funding to the tune of R1.45bn for 2016, and R2.4bn for 2017. 

Several of the additions to the budget made last year will continue across the MTEF – for 2017 they will amount to R5.5bn. But this is not, strictly speaking, new funding.

No further additional amount has been allocated.

While we welcome the short term assistance this will give to students and Universities, several questions do arise: 

- Is the fee-free top up enough to cover the huge numbers of students involved? Some estimates are that as many as 700,000 students would need to be covered by this. We need assurances that this is an accurate amount. 

- Where is the funding to come from?  We need guarantees that this funding will not be drawn from the education sector itself, as some of it was last year, and that Universities will be not asked to contribute to it themselves, as happened last year.

- Is the new NSFAS top up intended to cover debt-relief again, as was the case last year?

- What is the long-term plan around University funding in general and fee increases in particular? The need for fee increases will continue relentlessly because of falling state subsidies The public needs reassurance that in a year from now they will not be dealing with the same issues once again in this kind of ad hoc manner. The DA stands firm in our belief that no qualifying student should be denied tertiary education just because they are poor. 

The future of millions of young people hang in the balance in the absence of viable long tern solutions to the fee crisis and this budget did not provide lasting answers to these vital questions.

Issued by Belinda Bozzoli, DA Shadow Minister of Higher Education and Training, 26 October 2016