YCLSA concerned about exorbitant university fees increases

The Young Communist League of South Africa (uFasimba) is deeply concerned about exorbitant university fee increases and the prohibitive fees that prevail against students from working class and poor families in our country. 

The YCLSA supports and is actively participating in all the principled and peaceful struggles by the students against financial exclusion in all its forms, including upfront fee payments. As the YCLSA, we are strongly opposed to any measures adopted by institutions of learning to convert education from a constitutional right to a commodity-privilege for a few, mostly, students from well-off and capitalist families whose parents have the money to buy access. 

The YCLSA welcomes the efforts being undertaken by the Department of Higher Education and Training and the Presidency, especially the recently announced task team to find solutions to the challenges of students funding.  As the YCLSA, we are calling on universities to reverse exorbitant fee increases and not prevent students from writing examination solely because they are poor and cannot afford to pay. All students must be allowed to write their examination!

The YCLSA calls on students to be beware of the forces that infiltrate their struggles with an objective of hijacking these struggles to serve their narrow, party political and factional interests. Forces such as the so-called Democratic Alliance (DA) for example, have no interest in the plight of students from working class and poor families.

This is why the DA, and its like, all of them nothing but right-wing and populist opportunists, are spreading the propaganda that the problem does not lie with the decisions made by universities to increase fees to sky-rocketing levels but lies with the Department of Higher Education and Training(HET). It is not the HET Department that increases university fees!

University fees are increased by universities using their institutional autonomy, in terms of which the Minister of HET, Dr Blade Nzimande, is prevented from intervening directly in universities and making administrative and governance decisions. This is why, as the YCLSA, we are calling for a review of institutional autonomy and the amendment of the Higher Education Act to allow the HET Minister, in the interest of the people as a whole, to regulate university fees. The YCLSA believes that university fees must be reduced and standardised as one of the steps that must be taken towards the progressive introduction of free quality education.  

The problem of university fee increases and expensive student fees are also a product of many years of racism that prevailed in universities, especially historically white institutions, which were not established to accommodate black people in general. This is why, 21 years since 1994, there are still elements dominating decision-making structures in some of such universities who insist that those universities must remain exclusionary. And most of these individuals, who are predominantly white males, are DA’s diehard electoral base or support other conservative parties of white privilege in opposition to the African National Congress (ANC) and the alliance it is leading. This is one of the reasons why the DA contends that the problem is not with the decisions made by those racists?

The YCLSA would also like to caution against some elements in our own movement who have chosen the liberalism of playing out in the gallery of a counter-revolution represented by the DA and other opportunist political parties. This factionalism, which is being played out against the HET Minister who is being isolated because he is a communist, can only bear bitter fruits which the rest of the ANC-led national liberation alliance will not be able to swallow. 

It is common cause that the HET Department is not responsible for revenue legislation, policy and allocation – this is the responsibility of the National Treasury!

It is common cause that the success of the HET Department in expanding access to education is subject to the limits of the policy instruments at its disposal and the resources allocated to it! It is nothing but poisonous and mischievous to blame the HET Department for not having sufficient resourcesto deliver free quality higher education and training. 

The work of the HET Department in expandingaccess – and not working in isolation but implementing the ANC-led alliance electoral manifesto under the leadership of President Jacob Zuma as head of state – is visible though facing prohibitive resource constraints. The National Skills Fund (NSF) and Sector Education and Training Authorities (Setas) have also been leveraged to support the National Students Financial Aid Scheme (NSFA). There can be no doubt that – for the HET Department go beyond the advances that it has achieved – more resources must be allocated to it.

The current problem of student funding in universities, and also in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TEVT) colleges, is a manifestation of deeper economic system and structural problems of a capitalist economy; these have not been created by the HET Department.

Persisting high levels of inequality, unemployment and poverty are a serious problem. Their role in the equation, including, in constraining the growth of our tax base and the capacity of the state to meet all the material and cultural needs of the people, cannot ignored. It is foolhardy to blame the origin and reproduction of these problems on the HET Department. 

The DA is opposed to state ownership of productive assets, promotes privatisation and pushes for consistent reduction of corporate tax. What do these neoliberal policies do? They reduce the capacity of the state to generate revenue and support development imperatives such as education. 

What a hypocrisy!

The DA supports labour brokers and is opposed tothe struggle for the banning of labour brokers. How much do workers under labour brokers earn? Nothing but peanuts! Can they afford the expensive university fees for their children using those peanuts? No! 

The DA is opposed to workers’ demands for wage increases and the national minimum wage. Can low-waged-workers afford university fees for their children? The answer, again, is a big NO!

Instead of factionalism, all the formations organised under the leadership of the ANC must close rank and properly support students. 

Issued by YCLSA National Spokesperson Khaya Xaba, 20 October 2015