In announcing free higher education, South African President Jacob Zuma, lobbed a populist hot potato at the ANC elective conference but it’s ordinary people whose fingers will be burnt.
A closer look at the resolution of South Africa’s ruling party, the ANC, show that it won’t undertake a radical economic transformation agenda as suggested by media reports.
Free university education and land redistribution without compensation have far-reaching implications for South Africa’s economy, and requires exceptional leadership.
Some students argue wrongly that the ANC has betrayed the promise of free higher education made in the Freedom Charter. The governing party’s populism is also to blame for the confusion.
Demands being made by protesting students in South Africa purport to support the poor. But the most marginalised young people in the country will not benefit from free higher education.
There has been a great deal of research, planning and talking to come up with solutions to South Africa’s higher education funding crisis. Some of these plans must now be put into action.
A “buy now, pay later” model is well suited to financing higher education. Commercial bank loans are not viable. Government-backed loans with income-contingent repayment are the fair solution.
Higher education is a resource intensive enterprise. It cannot effectively function without a massive injection of resources in a sustained and escalated manner.
It’s unlikely that student protests are directly affecting South African universities’ rankings. Instead, decades of government underfunding in higher education may be at least partly to blame.
South Africa’s higher education minister has dealt with fee increments for 2017 but sidestepped students’ fundamental issue: an ongoing call to make higher education free for all.
Free public higher education is possible and necessary. It’s also realistic, if it’s based on thorough research, consultation and students giving back through community service after graduation.
If higher education is made “free” for all, the whole society ends up paying more. That’s deeply unjust in already unequal societies, such as those in Africa.
Many people dismiss the idea of free, quality public university education out of hand. But there are many ways to make it happen - and it all ties back to the idea of education as a public good.
South Africa’s fee exemption system is at the heart of a deepening divide in the country’s school sector. It’s time for a major relook at how this policy is applied.
Don’t let the name fool you: the #feesmustfall protests at South Africa’s universities are about far more than a single issue. A student who has been deeply involved in the protests explains.
Chief Director: Tshwane University of Technology – Institute for Economic Research on Innovation; Node Head: DST/NRF SciSTIP CoE; and Professor Extraordinary: Stellenbosch University – Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology., Tshwane University of Technology