Stop empty promises

Nqobile Mdaka did something very risky for an 18-year-old girl who had never left home.

She left her township outside Nelspruit with a suitcase a few weeks ago and headed for a taxi rank. She boarded an unsteady taxi to Johannesburg, then another one to Bloemfontein.

She did not have a cent to her name. She landed in Bloemfontein and hoped to find somewhere and the R70000 needed to cover her accommodation in residence, tuition, textbooks, groceries and toiletries. All she had was the promise.

The eldest child of unemployed parents, she left behind siblings in school armed only with a Statement of Results from the National Senior Certificate which showed remarkably high results for a student from a seriously disadvantaged township school. She clutched that paper with good marks; this was the promise, that if she did well in school, she might just be able to study at university one day.

"Sign here," said one of my secretaries. "There is no more money left and registration is closed; the student has to go home. Sign so that we can at least pay the bus tickets back to Nelspruit."

Emotionally, this has been my toughest year yet when it comes to student finances. I am not sure whether it is because of the reckless public statements by politicians that no poor student will be denied study, or the promise that 2014 will be a "fee-free" year for university.

Whatever the electoral motivations of heartless politicians, the students hear these messages and show up holding that paper. I can see it in their eyes: "You made a promise in 1994; our leaders make promises every day; have you not heard the promises from Pretoria? We are here to claim that promise."

If only our promises were real. Thousands of students are streaming home right now from the 23 universities because there is no money despite the promise.

I simply cannot bring down the pen to sign the paper, and ask to see the young woman.

"What is your name, dear student?"

With a delightful click of the tongue: "Nqobile, sir."

I ask her to tell me her story. She was found crying in her university residence by another student, a senior from Pretoria, who then called her mother, who in turn offered to pay the registration fees.

It is time to call the mother. Portia Matlala sounds depressed but there is some life in her voice when I call.

"I am driving," she says, "and my radio is even off; I am feeling so sad for that student who my daughter told me about."

I read Matlala's e-mail: "I was willing to pay for her registration fee [R10890] today so she can pursue her degree. I do not expect her to pay me back. I just wanted to give an opportunity to get a degree. Unfortunately, late this afternoon she was informed that even if I pay she will not be able to register because registration closed."

I tell her not to worry, we will register and pay for the student, and she could perhaps contribute to the books. The relief in the voice of the stranger carries across the phone lines as the university and a parent strike a partnership to support the Nelspruit teenager.

We need to sort out the national crisis in student financing as soon as possible. The best minds in the country need to be brought together to find a sustainable strategy for funding students in need. The National Financial Aid Scheme does not have enough money to cover all students. Moving around existing university subsidy funds in favour of student loans and bursaries will simply collapse already fragile institutional infrastructures.

The answer might lie in fresh ideas from the private sector and creative ways of incentivising ordinary citizens to invest in a national bursary scheme beyond the instruments available. Ordinary citizens like Matlala, whose heart for a stranger will change not one but many lives in Nelspruit.

What we cannot do is relive this stress and tension year after year in the lives of poor students and vulnerable institutions. More than one university has already seen violent strikes as students, in their ignorance, turn on their universities when the problem lies with the limited capacity of NSFAS to fund all academically smart but poor students.

Something must be done, urgently, or the promise will mean nothing.