Voices | Duma Gqubule | Six years after FeesMustFall protests erupted on campuses across South Africa, the country is still far from achieving the goal of universal, free and quality tertiary education for all
Six years after #FeesMustFall protests erupted on campuses across South Africa, the country is still far from achieving the goal of universal, free and quality tertiary education for all.
Sadly, this has not resulted in a significant increase in access to tertiary education, according to an analysis of statistics provided in the higher education and training chapter of National Treasury’s 2021 estimates of national expenditure. The percentage of Nsfas beneficiaries at 26 universities and 50 technical and vocational educational and training colleges increased to 36.1% of total enrolments in 2020/21 from 26.9% in 2017/18, the final year of the previous scheme.
At the much smaller National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 97 of the students they funded completed their PhDs in 2019/20, bringing the five-year total to 229. This means that 1.1 million of the 1.8 million students enrolled in tertiary education did not get state support.While Nsfas provides funding to about half of undergraduate university and TVET students, it is the lack of funding for postgraduate studies that pulls the average down. The NRF provides funding to only 6.
Using an average cost per student of R59 508 for this year, Nsfas would not have been able to provide funding to 95 785 students, which was equivalent to 52% of the 184 315 first-time new entrants for the 2021 academic year. ISFAP models assumed that government would cover all or part of student debts, but Treasury refused, the department said in its presentation.
In the ANC NEC presentation, the department said it would propose further reductions of R3.1 billion from its voted funds. This comprised R2.5 billion from university subsidies, R500 million from TVET subsidies and R100 million from goods and services. The department would also raid R3.3 billion from the National Skills Fund, which would enter into an agreement with Nsfas.
Economists have tried to measure the relationship between the quantity and quality of education, and economic growth.South African university enrolments doubled between 1994 and 2019. TVET college enrolments increased by 88%, but government did not allocate sufficient resources to accommodate the growth in enrolments.
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