Higher education task team will fail if it does not include Treasury

6 October 2015

The Task Team set up to find short term solutions to the chronic lack of funding for students will be set up to fail if it does not include representation from Treasury. 

Following a meeting with Vice-Chancellors and Chairpersons of Councils of South African Universities to address issues of underfunding, violence and transformation, President Zuma announced today that a Task Team will be established to find short term solutions to student funding challenges. 

This Task Team will be made up of several relevant stakeholders, yet Treasury, which holds the purse-strings of government, is conspicuous in its absence.

The DA will write to the President to press upon him the need to ensure that Treasury representatives, empowered to commit the proper funds, will also be a part of the Task Team.

We must not forget that at the heart of this matter is the education and futures of our young people. A short term solution is not going to address the deep seated problem of a lack of funding especially if Treasury is not participating.

The DA will also write to the Chairperson of the Higher Education Portfolio Committee, Yvonne Phosa, to call Treasury to engage with the Committee as to how it can help with the funding crisis in both the short and the long term.

The President acknowledged that the violence at universities and colleges around the country is directly linked to the chronic lack of funding to both students and Universities. Yet there was barely any mention of the role government has had in the lack of funding that is at the root of the violence.

In fact, The President’s statement came across as somewhat hectoring and grudging, and appeared to blame Universities as much as it blamed students for problems of violence on campuses and shortfalls in funding.

While short term solutions may, for now, halt the violence that we have seen on numerous campuses across the country, they will do nothing to deal with the long standing crisis of funding.

The DA has consistently pointed out the ongoing crisis of funding for both students and universities. It should by now be clear to those who wish to see it that a short term solution is not enough. 

The Government has in a number of its own reports, including one by the Ministerial Committee for the Review of the Funding of Universities, chaired by Cyril Ramaphosa and presented to the Portfolio Committee in February this year, clearly pointed out that more funding is needed across the board for higher education in South Africa.

It is true that there has been a steady increase in funding for NSFAS over the past few years. However the pace of that increase appears to have stalled, while at the same time dramatically increasing numbers of students have been admitted to Universities. In addition, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) college students have been, quite rightly, included in NSFAS, while the costs of higher education have steadily risen. The increases in NSFAS grants remain insufficient. And neither Universities nor TVETs have had significant increases in funding for their own costs for the past twenty years.

Higher Education provides our young people with opportunities to find jobs and therefore work, toward a better life for themselves and their families. We must do all we can to ensure there is a proper and solid commitment to provide more funding to these young people and the universities and colleges themselves, to ensure the maximum number of opportunities for the maximum number of young people in viable and well-resourced institutions. 

Statement issued by Prof Belinda Bozzoli MP, DA Shadow Minister of Higher Education, 6 October 2015