SAUS slams Gordhan's mid-term budget

27 October 2016 - 15:47 By Neo Goba
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Blade Nzimande.
Blade Nzimande.
Image: Thulani Mbele

The South African Union of Students (SAUS) has expressed its disappointment with Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s medium-term budget policy statement.

This comes after Gordhan had told Parliament on Wednesday that one of the priorities was the funding for higher education‚ and that universities and students would benefit from an additional R17-billion over the medium term.

He also said subsidies to universities would grow by 10.9% each year and transfers to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) would grow by 18.5%.

"We are committed to the struggle of free quality education for the poor and the working class. The slight disappointment we have with the minister's budget speech is that he didn’t tell us when will free education be implemented because that is what we want‚" said SAUS president Avela Mjajubana.

The outspoken SAUS leader said he was not interested in the amount of money that would be pumped into the budget for education‚ but rather when free education would be realised.

"Even if they (Treasury) can [allocate] R100 billion‚ they must be able to tell us when will free education for the poor be implemented. We however welcome the increase that is going to cover the missing middle and also the debt clearance of all missing middle students.

"We also welcome that there will be no registration fee for the poor and missing middle students because ours is for the poor and the working class. We still maintain that those that can afford must still pay‚" added Mjajubana.

The union has been firm on rejecting a recommendation made by the Council on Higher Education for the implementation of an across the board inflation-related fee increase next year. The council had said implementing a 0% fee increase again next year would not be sustainable for the sector.

However‚ Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande announced in September that universities could decide on their own fee hikes for the 2017 academic year‚ capped at 8%.

"We are not going to rest until government tells us the date of the implementation of our call. This commission that is supposed to release a preliminary report‚ should be used as a report that is going to guide and give us practical steps towards the implementation of free higher education‚" said Mjajubana.

He also suggested that as from January 2017‚ they will "push" government to change the National Student Financial Aid Scheme from a loan to a grant system.

Asked where government would recover the money from‚ he replied: "We have submitted documents to the commission and to government that there is a lot of money in South Africa.

Private sector also needs to be dragged into the process because we are seeing a slow pace from the private sector. That is what we also wanted from the minster (Gordhan) to give us a policy framework on how that sector is going to be taxed to fund free higher education."

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