Blame Mbeki’s ‘problematic’ Gear policy for university funding crisis – Nzimande

Higher Education and Training minister Dr Blade Nzimande recently blamed the post-democratic government’s Growth‚ Employment and Redistribution (Gear) policy for the higher education funding crisis.

Nzimande was speaking in Pretoria when he said part of the reason higher education faced a crisis today was because of the ‘problematic’ economic policy, introduced in the 90s by former president Thabo Mbeki.

According to Timeslive, Nzimande said under the ‘neo-liberal’ policy, government focused more on growing the education system but essentially failed to match the growth with funding.

READ MORE: Don’t infringe on others’ right to learn – Nzimande 

This resulted in inadequate funding, which Nzimande said the current administration now had to assume collective responsibility for.

Nzimande also spoke of the impact the National Student Financial Aid Scheme programme (Nsfas) had in increasing access to higher education for the less privileged.

He added that the programme, launched in 1994, has since assisted over one million students and given loans and bursaries totaling R14 billion.

The minister also said NSFAS-qualifying students who registered in 2016 and passed the year, but accumulated debt at their institution during the year would still be allowed to register this year, despite their historical debt.

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