Tick-tock until the ‘free education’ bomb goes off

One of the time bombs left behind by former president Jacob Zuma blew up in the innards of government this week. The damage to the national accounts is potentially fatal.

Zuma’s 2017 defeat, when he was beaten by Cyril Ramaphosa for the leadership of the ANC, did not herald the surrender of the radical economic transformation (RET) faction but the launch of its guerrilla warfare campaign.

As a parting gift, the RET soldiers left the “New Dawn” wing a matching set of improvised explosive devices: expropriation without compensation (EWC) and free tertiary education. EWC is still ticking. Free education is about to explode.

A few years back, the ANC scrambled to meet the demands of the #FeesMustFall campaign and billions of rands were redirected from other worthy causes to expand tertiary access to 90% of the population, as determined by a household means test.

Business, the universities and donor organisations were bludgeoned into assisting, though most realised that it was likely to be an ever-expanding and bottomless pit.

The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (Nsfas) needs about R7 billion to pay the tuition, accommodation and living costs of qualifying students. And this week, the SA Union of Students closed down all 26 universities until their demands are met for zero fee increases and for all historical debt to be written off.

As always, the government has capitulated quickly. It’s going to find the money for 2021 by pinching R500 million from the technical vocational education and training (TVET) colleges budget and almost R2.5 billion from the grants it gives to universities for salaries and research, as well as R3.3 billion from the National Skills Fund (NSF).

As Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande cheerfully admits: “I want to be honest with (sic) that. We’re robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

As always, the universities are the victims of government’s mess. Not only are they being held responsible by rampaging students for the government’s failure to provide the “free education” it promised, but the government is aggravating their financially parlous situation, caused by decades of underfunding.

As bad is the injustice of the Nzimande “solution” towards the more than four million unemployed youths who benefit from the NSF. One of their few routes out of poverty is through the NSF’s now to be trimmed learnership.

Students are a highly privileged group. Who would not want to be a cosseted student in a country with over 50% youth unemployment? All academic fees are covered. Each student receives a free laptop. The free education chimaera continues to have vociferous support.

The Higher Education Transformation Network (HETN) reminded us “free access to higher education is a right not a privilege for the few”.

It’s difficult to know what to make of an organisation that appears to be unaware that, aside from donations, scholarships and research, business pays for all these state investments via tax.

There is a clue, though. The HETN website announces that “all correspondence” with them “must be in writing”. There’s a lot to be said for free education. More to be said for a good one.

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