Pretoria - Free higher education for all is a bad idea, Dr Nico Cloete of the Centre for Higher Education and Training (CHET) said on Thursday.
There was not enough money in any developing country for free higher education, he said.
Free higher education would not benefit the poor as it was not that they could not afford to pay at universities but simply that they did not qualify to go to varsities, he said.
“Only the rich and middle class will benefit from free education - they are likely to qualify for university. What is easy and morally defensible is free higher education for the very poor, like those who earn below R120 000 per year,”he said.
As much as free higher education sounded revolutionary and appealing, it was financially and morally wrong in a developing country, Cloete said. “What we need is affordable higher education for all, with affordable meaning different costs for different groups in society.
“Also not that difficult to implement, and very defensible is that the rich must pay more. While the children of Struggle veterans marched demanding free higher education in #FeesMustFall, they should have also carried posters which said: We will pay more’.”
If there were to be free higher education, Cloete said he would suggest it be given to vocational education as it added more to the country’s economic growth than universities.
Vice-chancellor and principal at the University of Pretoria Professor Cheryl de la Rey said Tuks had critical challenges after the “#FeesMustFall movement. “We are faced with the culture of non payment - even those who can afford to pay do not pay,” she said.
De la Rey said most students who enrolled at universities could afford to pay for their tuition, as per research done at their university.
She proposed that students from low-income families pay lower fees, while students from well-off families paid the full fee rate. “If students are partially funded, that persuades them to complete their degrees in record time,”she said.
Pan African Student Movement (Pasma) and the SAFurther Education and Training Student Association (Safetsa) were expected to present their submissions but did not show up.
Commission of Enquiry on Higher Education and Training spokesman Musa Ndwandwe said they did not know why Pasma did not make it to the hearing and why their leaders did not respond when contacted. Safetsa pleaded to make their presentation on September 9 as they were not yet ready, he said.
The commission, chaired by Judge Arthur Heher, earlier heard that South African universities were currently struggling financially. The situation is worsened by the huge, ballooning debt owed by students.
“At the universities that are under financial stress, expenditure increased by 20.8% and personnel costs by 17.1% between 2012 and 2014. Personnel costs constituted 53% of total expenditure in 2014,”director-general in the Department of Higher Education and Training Gwebinkundla Qonde told the inquiry in Pretoria.
“The greatest cost driver is staffing, although as expenditure on staffing increased, student-staff ratios worsened. Staff growth has not kept pace with student growth.”
Qonde said in 2014, five universities incurred operating deficits. Tthe situation was already critical long before the violent #FeesMustFall protests which crippled the sector last year. “The financial situation is worsening. The effect of the zero percent increase (a result of the #FeesMustFall protests) and the demand for insourcing of workers at universities is still to be quantified.”
“Financial sustainability of the sector whole is at high risk and is exacerbated by significant student debt. Student debt before provision for doubtful debt was 27.8% of income from tuition fees in 2014, increasing from R3.6 billion in 2012 to R5.4bn in 2014 - an increase of about 50.7%.”
These figures are money owed to universities directly, excluding funds given to students by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS). - Additional reporting ANA
Pretoria News