/ 13 October 2016

Nzimande: Free higher education for all won’t be government policy for a long time

Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande.
Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande.

Another bruising showdown is looming between student formations and higher education minister Blade Nzimande, after he said that free higher education for all was not government policy and “it’s not going to be government policy for a long time to come”.

Nzimande was making his presentation before the commission of inquiry that was tasked with investigating the feasibility of providing fee-free higher education.

The commission hosted public hearings in Centurion, Pretoria, today.

“We are a highly unequal society. Those who can afford to pay must pay and those who are rich and wealthy must also pay. It’s inappropriate for a society like ours to define decommodification in that manner. It must be the poor and those who cannot afford [to pay] who must actually be assisted,” he said.

Nzimande’s comments are expected to anger the South African Union of Students (SAUS) as well as the South African Students’ Congress (Sasco) and the Economic Freedom Fighters student command that have been demanding free higher education.

Asked by the chairperson of the commission, Judge Jonathan Heher, whether he understood that students were demanding free education for everybody, Nzimande replied: “Some of them, not all of them, are actually putting this slogan and some of the academics are saying it must be free for everyone. They want free quality higher education now.”

“[In South Africa now], what we are doing is part of decommodification of education by saying to those who cannot pay that it must not be like a commodity they can’t afford. But to pay for the rich is not decommodification; you will be asking the poor to subsidise the rich if you ask everybody, including the rich, to be paid for by government.”

Judge Heher told Nzimande that some students had suggested that providers of private education should be thrown in jail, to which Nzimande quipped: “In my young days I used to say so, judge, not that my ideological orientation has changed.”

“But we should take into account context. Let me put it like this. Some have argued in Cuba higher education is free for everyone. Of course it should be because there’s no wealthy class in Cuba so there’s a different situation altogether.

“You can’t in a highly unequal capitalist society have free higher education for all even where you have had that in some few countries.”

Asked by Judge Heher whether free education for all would become a possibility if the percentage of poor became very small, Nzimande said: “Possibly or if you have a socialist South Africa, judge. But on this trajectory we are on as a country, it’s difficult to see that in the immediate future.”

Said Nzimande: “If South Africa remains the kind of society with this economic system that it has, I don’t see that happening under that context.”

Asked by the head of evidence leaders, Advocate Kameshni Pillay, why it had taken government such a long time to start addressing the constitutional rights of the so-called “missing middle” students, Nzimande said it had to do “with demand and what government saw as a priority”.

“It was because of inadequate resources. Even the poor, by the way, we are not funding them adequately. The number of poor students who qualified for NSFAS [National Student Financial Aid Scheme] funding has just been so big that we have really not been able to even cover that fully so it’s a question of competing imperatives.”

But he denied that government had been “in breach” of its obligations in respect of the poor by not assisting all students who qualified for NSFAS funding.

“I wouldn’t put it that way that government has been in breach because these matters are also based on affordability. They are also based on other very pressing competing government priorities and how we then slice up the money that is in the fiscus. Right now we are sitting with the challenge of implementing the national health insurance.”

He said they have been “self-critical” of the R122 000 annual household income that was used to identify students who needed funding.

“This R122 000 has been there for ages.”

Said Nzimande: “One unintended consequence for having paid the fee increase this year for everybody by government is that we had to take money earmarked for masters and doctoral scholarships that was needed to train young South Africans to become academics at universities.

“Unfortunately that money went with the FeesMustFall.”