University funding deficit needs to be fixed to arrest violence on campuses
17 September 2015
The call by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) for the Police to intervene at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) will only treat the symptoms of the problem.
Once again we see desperate and angry students rioting. These frequent riots are the product of an ANC-government policy on Higher Education which has seen funding for Universities decline in real terms since 1994, and funding for poor students failing to meet the demand. It is incumbent upon the Government to address the serious shortfalls in the funding provided to struggling students and universities alike.
Yesterday, the DHET called for the police to intervene at UKZN where students, who have been rioting since Sunday, have stoned and torched cars as well as set fire to buildings on the campus. The University announced that all classes would be halted, meaning that students are not being educated.
It is important to note that the DA does not condone violence. Law enforcement must do all it can to restore peace on our campuses. But equally, the government cannot simply defer the problem to the police. It must deal with its own shortcomings.
The students say they are unhappy with the decision made by the University to close the Registration Appeals Committee process – which facilitates payment plan agreements between the University and students who are in debt. Students also object to an increase in the payment of upfront fees, which they say they are unable to do.
But the ANC government must also accept some responsibility for this tragic situation. Under its watch:
-Severe limits on the funding to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) mean that hundreds of thousands of poor students are left annually without support, at UKZN and elsewhere. By NSFAS’s own calculations, only half of eligible students receive funding.
-Universities such as UKZN, Fort Hare and many others have an extremely high number of poor students, and the NSFAS shortfall seriously affects their income.
-Furthermore institutions such as UKZN, as well as many others, are struggling to operate within their current financial models because there has been an overall decline in real terms of the funding by the ANC government of Universities relative to student numbers since 1994. Over this period, funding per student head has declined from R 20 187 in 1994 to R16 764 in 2014. The inadequacy of current financial models in Universities has affected other places too, the University of Fort Hare being one, for the same reasons.
-Furthermore, UKZN itself has been systematically impoverished over the past decade, leaving it unable to fund its own operations at the beginning of each year without a more substantial upfront payment. The management practices in the University under the authority of the previous Vice-Chancellor, Professor William Makgoba, whose appointment continues to be celebrated in various quarters of government, are to blame. Professor Makgoba was not only notorious for having run the University in an authoritarian and dictatorial style; but for having taken the University from a situation of economic stability to a situation where it now sits with a significant deficit and a declining income from student fees.
The current Vice-Chancellor of UKZN, Professor van Jaarsveld, now faces the enormous challenge of managing a university with serious structural financial difficulties bequeathed by the ANC-blessed Makgoba years, at the same time as dealing with vast numbers of unfunded and resentful students.
Calling for the Police to intervene is treating the symptoms and not the root causes, and will not assist in the long term resolution of the structural problems at UKZN, Fort Hare and many other places. The only solution is for the funding for Higher Education to be fundamentally re-thought at the highest levels in government.
Statement issued by Prof Belinda Bozzoli, DA Shadow Minister of Higher Education, 17 September 2015
