Delays and doubts: Gigaba adds to the confusion on actual funding for free Higher Education
17 January 2018
In a Press Conference yesterday Finance Minister, Malusi Gigaba broke the news that free higher education will not be rolled out over the promised five years, but over eight. Just two weeks ago Higher Education Minister, Hlengiwe Mkhize, said free education would be phased in over five years. It is time that the two ministers spoke to one another about this.
Even eight years seems an inordinately short time for him to find the roughly R40m to R50m per annum that will be required once students in all years are funded. He himself acknowledged that our national budget is inadequate even without this requirement. So which other Departments will this money be taken from? Social Development? Basic Education? Human Settlements?
With registration ongoing during January, students and their parents are not sure what exactly is happening.
Minister Gigaba also cast further doubt on the ANC’s grasp of the issues when he said that “the Government had now established how much free higher education would cost”, but at the same time that “nobody can be very certain about the actual quantum of the figures required for the funding of the system”. He admitted that there “was still a lot of uncertainty” including how many students would actually need financial assistance. Students must be wondering what on earth all of this means.