Minister Gordhan needs to show us the money for 2017 university fees

19 September 2016

The announcement made by the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Blade Nzimande, today concerning government’s support to cover fee increases for students from poor, working and middle class families raised more questions than answers.

While we welcome the announcement, as well as the acknowledgment by the Minister that he respects University autonomy, he failed to give us a clear indication that the funding support he announced for poor, deserving students actually exists. 

While Minister Nzimande has committed government to cover fee increases for all poor, working and middle class students at university and TVETs in 2017, he stated that he “hopes” that the Minister of Finance will announce funding in the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement, expected at the end of October.

Making such an announcement, without a commitment from the Treasury, verges on the irresponsible. Besides this glaring gap in the announcement, Minister Nzimande provided us with no assurance that the Higher Education sector would not again have to pay for all or a part of the additional support to students.

Last year, the “no fee increase” announcement was made by the President in a high-handed manner which usurped the autonomy of universities and with little sense of the real costs or of who would pay for it.

It ended up that the Universities themselves had to pay for some of the resulting costs, and that a substantial additional portion of it had to be found from the Higher Education Budget itself. In particular, a fund specifically directed at support for historically disadvantaged universities had to be raided. This cannot be allowed to happen a second time. 

The DA calls upon Minister Gordhan to clarify the matter of the sources of the funding. He needs to make clear to the public whether the Higher Education budget will be protected from further raiding, and whether, indeed, the fund for historically disadvantaged universities will ever be restored.

As was the case last year, the Minister has provided a short-term, band-aid solution which, which will not help a sector which has been progressively sinking into disrepair over the past 20 years. The Ministry so far shows little sign that it has any long-term vision on these matters and it remains to be seen whether the much vaunted Commission of Enquiry will be able to offer such vision.

Issued by Belinda Bozzoli DA Shadow Minister of Higher Education and Training, 19 September 2016