UNIVERSITY FEE INCREMENTS FOR 2017
The African National Congress Youth League has noted the announcement by the Minister of Higher Education concerning the matter of increment in University tuition fees for 2017. We note the argument by the Minister that the matter of University fees is the domain of University Councils, as asserted by law under the principle of Institutional Autonomy. We further noted that the Minister has committed to subsidize the increment of fees to all students who belong to the categories of “the poor” and the “missing middle.”
The ANC Youth League firstly rejects the entire argument that a fee increment to the margin of 8% must be contemplated. As we said in our Open Letter to the Minister last week we strongly condemn deployees of the ANC from acting contrary to the decision of the NEC of the ANC this is not acceptable. We therefore re-retaliate our position on moratorium on all University fees pending the outcomes of the Presidential Commission on Free Education.
This moratorium is also in line with the decision of the NEC of the ANC. We have consistently warned against chopping and changing of NEC decisions by deployees. We acknowledge that this was an attempt towards the right direction but it remains not enough. This moratorium must force the Presidential Commission to move with speed and draw already existing conclusions on the matter as detailed in the Balintulo Commission Report on NSFAS Review and the Swartz Commission Report on Fee-Free University Education.
Secondly, we reject the exaltation of the principle of Institutional Autonomy as an explanation of the failure by the Ministry to prevent fee increments. Whereas the principle stands, the Ministry had an opportunity to lead a process of reviewal of current legislation in order to avoid this trap, especially following the waves of protests on the same matter over many years.
We have been calling for the Ministry to review Higher Education legislation concerning governance statutes so that the state can be allowed to investigate University Financial Reserves in order to determine the extent to which they're hiding money as part of their commercialization of these institutions and their knowledge products.