Note to Editors: This speech was delivered by the DA Leader Mmusi Maimane during a National Assembly debate on ’Higher Education Transformation’ on 27 October 2015.

The doors of learning remain shut

27 October 2015

South Africa’s young people are facing a crisis of opportunity.

Someone must fall – but if it is up to Minister Nzimande, students must fall. And in truth they have fallen under the ANC.

Madam Speaker

Honourable Members

Bagaetsho 

Dumelang

In 1976, students in Soweto rose up against an evil system that sought to deny their right to education. A system that also sought to see students fall.

The system responded with the full force of the police. Instead of engaging with students, it sought to break them down.

Last week, young people across South Africa went to the Union Buildings to fight for the opportunity to study. The vast majority went in peace to protest against the continued exclusion of particularly young poor South Africans from institutions of higher learning.

They too were met with force and police brutality by a government that wanted students to fall.

I would like to share a post I saw on Facebook of a message from a mother to her daughter with you:

 “If you march again, take a wet bandana with you. Your chances of getting teargassed are increasing and it is horrible. Cover your mouth and nose as soon as you hear the whizzing noise of the grenades (before they explode). Try to get to higher ground – tear gas is heavy and sinks.

I really didn’t expect to have to be teaching my children this.”

That post rings true as an honest reminder of how history can repeat itself. 

People are still mobilising for their basic right of inclusion and access to opportunity.

The struggle for education continues four decades after the Soweto Uprising. The ANC government has failed young people.

Honourable Members,

Just last week President Zuma and Minister Nzimande sat in silence in this very House while students protested outside the doors.

This is the greatest injustice of our democratic era. An ANC government that has not prioritised opportunities for our young and remains silent while our campuses burn.

This is not a new crisis. Minister Nzimande sat on least 2 reports, one dating back as far as 2010, that sets out the funding crisis in no uncertain terms.

Our universities face bankruptcy while the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) is only able to fund roughly half of those who qualify.

This includes the missing middle – those who come from households who earn more than the NSFAS threshold but too little to fund tuition themselves – remain excluded.

These students are forced to rely on the private sector or bank loans for funding, but without security for loans many are unable to find them.

These are the students who are forced to give up their hope of studying as they simply have no other choice. These are children of police officers, nurses, and teachers. Hard working South Africans who cannot afford to provide opportunities for their children.

These are the students we should be fighting for – those for whom a 0% cap on tuition fee increases does not change their continued financial exclusion.

Honourable Members,

The crisis we face was caused by an Executive that failed to act. The President did not act. Minister Nzimande did not act. And now we face the consequences.

In truth, Blade must fall.

But the DA has long had a policy that no student must be left behind, and that the doors of learning must be opened wide.

In 2014 our Election Manifesto was clear that no qualifying student should be financially excluded from pursuing their dreams.

The DA will therefore be fighting to amend the medium term budget in Parliament in order to force the ANC to reprioritise and reallocate non-essential expenditure in favour of opportunities for the young.

I reject the idea that there is no money available to increase funding to higher education. It is clear that the ANC’s priorities does not include students.

Therefore, Honourable Members,

I challenge the members on my left to work with us to open the doors of learning for young people.

Let us relocate the R2 billion from the Vodacom sale away from the BRICS Bank in order to bolster university funding. We must be investing in the future of our young people, not in a foreign bank.

Let us reprioritise the additional R720 million allocated to our foreign missions to offset the impact of the depreciation of the rand.

And let us reallocate R69.7 million additionally allocated to VIP Protection Services in favour of opportunities for young people.

If this becomes our attitude, we can work toward making sure that every university is adequately funded in the years to come.

Every budgetary cycle presents an opportunity to provide young people with opportunities by funding their future. We cannot allow this crisis to go to waste. We cannot wait until next year. 

Madam Speaker,

Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, “Universal education is not only a moral imperative but an economic necessity, to pave the way toward making many more nations self-sufficient and self-sustaining.”

Without broad access to higher education, South Africa will not be able to achieve the goal of an inclusive, non-racial South Africa, based on freedom, fairness and opportunity.

We have come too far not to take stand against the injustice of the exclusion of young people from pursuing higher education.

We will be judged in the history books by how we deal with this crisis.

We must make sure that we are on the right side.

It’s time to open the doors of learning and opportunity.

I thank you.

Issued by the DA, 27 October 2015