Johannesburg - The Education Alliance has called for the complete scrapping of university application and registration fees to help ensure universal access to higher learning.
The alliance, which comprises unions affiliated to Cosatu and a number of youth formations, suggested a number of options on Tuesday to stop money from being the barrier to higher learning.
“It is difficult for us to understand why a prospective student in need of financial assistance in the first place would be required to pay an application fee and a registration fee,” the alliance said in a statement following its first meeting of the year.
It said the country urgently needed to consider other possible forms of higher education funding. These included increasing the skills levy that companies contributed, which would be ring-fenced and dedicated to tertiary learning.
Also, the government needed to continue increasing the education and training budget in relation to the GDP, and urgent consideration was needed to see what roles finance institutions such as the Public Investment Corporation and trade union investment companies could play.
“The drastically increased funding that we are calling for must be directed towards postgraduate studies as well for the previously disadvantaged. In our view, it is futile to preach radical transformation in higher education while there is a lack of adequate measures to ensure that postgraduate studies are within reach of the previously disadvantaged,” the alliance said.
While it welcomed the start of the new academic year and “tangible progress” in the education system, it warned that if stubborn challenges were not conquered as a matter of urgency, the doors of learning would not be opened to all.
To help achieve this, the gap between policy intent and implementation had to be reduced quickly. This was especially necessary after it was made known by education authorities earlier this month that of the 1 million pupils who entered the system in 2003, only half of them matriculated, it said.
“We must strive to create an “ideal school” in which all the minimum requirements that will produce a conducive learning and teaching environment are met. We believe that 20 years into democracy, there should be no schools without the basic infrastructure required for teaching and learning,” the alliance said.
The alliance consists of the SA Democratic Teachers Union, the National Education Health and Allied Workers Union, the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union, the National Association of School Governing Bodies, the Congress of SA Students, the SA Students Congress, and the Young Communist League.
Group Labour Editor