THE recent meeting with students and government, including Jacob Zuma and Minister of Higher Education Blade Nzimande, seems to have yielded minimal results.
This so-called imbizo ended in a war of words between the students and the minister. The minister accused the students of grandstanding because of the presence of the media. He also stated that students were continuously shifting the goalposts to suit their own preconceived agendas.
The reality of the situation is that the students need to go back to lectures while proposals on a funding model to assist poor students is worked out.
The students' demands for free education has legitimacy when considering the billions of rand that is squandered through corruption, theft and unauthorised expenditure.
The Auditor-General's report showed almost R11 billion was lost through irregular expenditure. Almost R8 billion has been allocated to the National Financial State Aid Scheme (NFSAS). Once beneficiaries of these loans qualify and start earning they have a financial obligation to repay their loans, so it can be rolled over to assist other students.
Statistics in terms of loans granted and repayments need to be made available for the perusal of all concerned since public money is used to fund the students.
The pass rate of the students who are recipients of NFSAS need to be closely monitored. These loans need to be taken away from students who perpetually fail and given to other deserving students, who value education.
Statistics in terms of passes and failures need to be made available, so that this funding model can be continuously evaluated.
Stringent criteria needs to be formulated for students who are continuously failing and abusing the system. For now this may be a short-to-medium term solution while a realistic funding model is deliberated by all the affected stakeholders.
With our shrinking economy and the fact that 10% of the population pay 90% of the taxes in SA, generating income to fund free education will remain a challenge. South Africans hold the dubious title of being one of the most overtaxed nations in the world. So raising additional funds through taxation is going to be problematic.
Fundamentally the universal question is whether free tertiary education is going to be a reality soon or in the distant future, or is it a pipe dream that will never be realised…
Vijay Surujpal
Phoenix