There can be no denying that South Africa has a higher education funding crisis that needs to be resolved as a matter of urgency. The government and other role-players need to pull out all the stops to ensure that no academically deserving student is excluded from studying and obtaining their degree just because they cannot afford university fees.
However, the way President Jacob Zuma and his office seem to be going about searchingfor a solution is disconcerting, as it threatens to plunge the country into a much biggereconomic disaster — one that may take us decades to climb out of.
It was our democratic republic’s founding president, Nelson Mandela, who said thateducation is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world. In a society that is deeply divided and where inequality remains high despite efforts to reduce it, there is no doubt that access to quality education can pull many young South Africans out of the poverty trap and, in the long run, help the country grow its middle-class base.
South Africa spends about 0.75% of GDP on tertiary education, but our universitiesremain seriously underfunded — forcing these institutions to charge students exorbitantfees just to stay afloat.The average full cost of study at the University of the Witwatersrand, for instance, hasrisen from R37,925 in 2003 to over R115,000 this year. This makes education tooexpensive, especially for students from poor and working-class backgrounds. It is nowonder then that, over the past few years, our universities have become centres of mass protest and conflict.
But the government cannot resolve the problem by following a populist and reckless route. Zuma’s insistence that “free education” be provided to all despite it not having been properly budgeted for spells disaster for all.
That the president was ready to announce this in February this year without having agreed with the National Treasury that the country could afford it is but one further piece of evidence — if anyone still needs more — that our head of state is not only out of his depth as president, but has contempt for proper government processes and institutions.While it is a good thing that one of the #FeesMustFall movement ’s activists, PhDstudent Morris Masutha, went beyond protesting and took the initiative to start a dialogue with the government on what he sees as a possible solution to the crisis, his previous romantic involvement with one of the president’s daughters should have made him ineligible to act as the president’s adviser on this or any other matter.
What is even more shocking is that officials at the Treasury, the entity in charge of thecountry’s finances, seem to be playing a secondary role in the entire process whileMasutha’s voice seems to be carrying much weight. This is just unacceptable.
If a sustainable solution to funding higher education is to be found — one thatwill notbankrupt the country and eventually force us to borrow money from, for instance, theIMF — it would be through the Treasury, working with the Department of HigherEducation, universities and other recognised structures...