SA can ill afford Zuma’s ‘free education’ – expert

The ANC is in a dilemma about implementing its own policy decision on free education as the policy needs to be implemented incrementally.

This is the view of political analyst Prof Lesiba Teffo, who said the ANC dilemma could be the fact that enough financial resources should available for free eduction to be possible.

“Certain policy decisions that the ANC is taking are aspirational. There are those policies that can be implemented here and now and there those that can be implemented incrementally over a long period of time,” Teffo said.

University students met the ANC top six at the weekend to discuss the issue.

Last week, they received a sympathetic response from ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule, who said their demands made sense and must be implemented.

Magashule seemed to have thrown the cat among the pigeons in what some saw as backing the posture taken by former president Jacob Zuma, who declared free education in late 2017.

“I doubt Zuma had good intentions to announce free education on the eve of him leaving his office,” Teffo said.

“He just threw the cat among the pigeons, yet South Africa was not in a good economic position to afford free education.”

South Africa can ill afford unmitigated free education. The policy could work if those who received education funding through the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) paid back the money.

Teffo said this approach worked well under the scheme’s predecessor, Tertiary Education Fund of South Africa (Tefsa).

‘The thinking behind Tefsa was good because it was for students who could not afford tertiary education, but they still paid when they finished their studies and started working.

“That was a commendable initiative, but it was abused by beneficiaries and their parents… Some politicians used it for their own personal and political objectives and some even tried to sneak in their own children.”

Teffo said to be sustainable, those who were assisted should pay back and those who do not need assistance should pay from their own pocket.

Another analyst, Xolani Dube, from the Xubera Institute for Research and Development, said the students’ demand for free higher education was “selfish”.

“These things are inter-related, it’s selfish on the part of students to only fight for only what matters to them,” said Dube.

“Children are born in a broken society because of the ANC’s unfulfilled promises, these kids must understand that these promises are not about them only but affected the rest of society.”

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