DA to oppose Higher Education Bill adopted by Committee
11 May 2016
The Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training today adopted the Higher Education Amendment Bill. It will be considered in Parliament in two weeks and the DA will oppose the Bill because, amongst other things, it gives too much power to the Minister and in so doing threatens university autonomy.
The Bill is ostensibly simply put forward to streamline and update the legislation covering universities. But in fact it is replete with provisions expanding the powers of the Minister of Higher Education and further eroding the already severely weakened principle of university autonomy. Universities soon will be unable to fulfil their obligations towards the Constitutional principle of academic freedom as the state intervenes relentlessly into their domain.
The Bill will expand the Minister’s powers to issue binding directives to universities and to put universities under administration. It will provide the Minister with unprecedented powers to force universities to offer TVET courses, even if they are not equipped to do so. In some clauses, the Minister is simply given a blank cheque to intervene at will. ANC MPs in Committee claimed it was “unwise” the limit the Minister’s powers.
New wording will make it more difficult for Ministerial decisions to intervene in Universities to be challenged in court, even if they were based upon incorrect information. In fact the terminology used in the Bill is similar to that used in colonial and Apartheid era security legislation, when governments wanted to prevent courts from overturning certain decisions, such as the arrests of political activists.