Durban - The chief executive of Universities South Africa has encouraged churches to unite and engage on how a free educational model for tertiary students could work.
Addressing a packed hall at the Diakonia Centre last Friday, Ahmed Bawa said none of the universities were consulted before President Jacob Zuma announced free tertiary education for poor and working-class youth in their first year of study from this year.
“Instead of giving us six months (to introduce a model for free tertiary education), we have about two or three weeks to roll out a model and we are trying to understand how to implement it,” he said.
“To be on the positive side, we all need to see it as a big social project that we have to engage in, but we also have to ask, where is the funding coming from?
"Will it be taken from the military? Are we cutting the size of the cabinet to save money or will there be cuts across the departments?”
Bawa added: “No one from the universities was consulted and we were all left in shock at the announcement.
"Zuma said the finance minister would make it clear during his budget speech on how money would be allocated to fund students, which is scary.
"Funds are a big challenge for universities and it is a recurring challenge each year with student debt.
“The minister needs to make it very clear for us to understand how to tackle this problem. This year, we can take in 208 000 students.
"That is between R12 billion and R14bn, doubled in 2019 and tripled in 2020.
"If the decision is reversed two or three years down the line, it would be an absolute nightmare for us,” he said.
“At this moment we are concerned because we do not know if this programme is sustainable for us or how much the state would be contributing towards higher education.”
Bawa added that those students on the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) would get financial aid as a bursary and not as a loan.
“In 2018, if first-time students are being funded by NSFAS, it will be converted to a bursary. However, those returning students who have taken study loans prior to 2018 will still be required to pay their previous year’s debt.”
He said there were contradictions with regard to funding at the moment, and “it’s times like this that we miss Blade (Nzimande, the recently axed higher education minister), who fought hard for financial aid for students and we knew our budget well”.
Bawa requested that students apply via the Central Application Office instead of queuing outside universities.
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