Blade’s funding crisis denies poor students a better future
The University of Fort Hare (UFH) wants to increase registration fees next year from R3500 to R5000 and increase tuition fees by 15% on top of the 15% increase at the end of last year. These proposed increases will only serve to bar poorer students from tertiary education and by doing so, deny them an opportunity to improve their lives through employment prospects that come with a tertiary education.
The Democratic Alliance Student Organisation (DASO) led Student Representative Council at UFH will be leading the charge to ensure that students at the university are not excluded from the education they deserve just because they cannot afford to pay the large increases.
All students, currently barred from writing examinations due to debt from failures of NSFAS and the University Financial Aid offices, must be allowed to write examinations and those with debts, who are financially needy, must be funded and have their debts removed.
DASO will also specifically push the UFH to take the fight to the Minister of Higher Education, Blade Nzimande, who has not provided the University with adequate funding. His actions are denying opportunities to the poorest of students and cannot be allowed to continue any longer.
Indeed, the negative impact these increases will have for students is not isolated to UFH and exists on all campuses. This is illustrated in the recent protests seen on many campuses around the country, most recently at Wits, and are a symptom of the crisis in funding for tertiary education.
Minister Blade Nzimande often bemoans the lack of funding yet he seems to have done very little to secure the funding needed to provide our youth with the education they deserve and to ensure a better future for them and their families.
The problem with a lack of funding is twofold. Firstly there is not enough funding available for young people who qualify to study at a tertiary level through the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS). Second, universities themselves are also suffering from a funding shortage as their subsidies have declined in real terms over the past 20 years under the ANC government, yet are pushed to take in more students without the proper support to match the increased intake.
A DA government would turn this mess around by:
Encouraging the use of far more skills levy funding for relevant studies at universities and TVET Colleges;
Working closely with banks to revamp NSFAS, its priorities and methodology;
Allowing students to repay public loans through public service if they are studying towards qualifications in areas where the public service is in need of skills; and
Revamping the funding formula for Universities so that they do not need to resort to constantly raising fees to cover basic costs.
It is high time that Minister Nzimande, Treasury – who hold the purse strings of government - and government itself take heed of the calls for decisive action to increase funding available to both students and universities. This would ensure that no student is left behind.
Issued by Yusuf Cassim, DA Shadow deputy Minister of Higher Education and Training, 18 October 2015
