Education gets more money but too late to prevent stringent cost-cutting and student unrest, report Tangeni Amupadhi and Carien du Plessis
THE Ministry of Education may have succeeded in securing more money for tertiary education, but it has come too late to prevent stringent cost-cutting on campuses across the country.
Several universities and technikons contacted by the Mail & Guardian this week said that even with the additional government funding, they received far less this year than they had received last year. For many institutions, the new allocation will go straight into operating expenses – paying for staff salaries and building operations. Others said they would use the money to reduce deficits.
Education Minister Sibusiso Bengu’s announcement of the increase also failed to quell campus unrest, which has disrupted most of South Africa’s so-called black tertiary institutions.
It has been estimated that one student in six has been affected by campus turmoil. Among the hardest hit has been the University of Transkei. The universities of the North, Fort Hare and North West, and the Eastern Cape Technikon, have been closed.
Fort Hare is the latest university to close, due to students protesting against the exclusion of those who fail to pay fees.
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, in his Budget address on Wednesday, confirmed that tertiary institutions would receive an allocation of R5,4-billion for the 1997/98 fiscal year, representing an average funding level of 65,6% (a percentage of the total subsidy due under a funding formula dating back years).
The figure was 68% last year, but Bengu had warned in December that the initial funding level for 1997/98 was likely to be just 60%, prompting institutions to start planning drastic budget cuts, and students and academics to start planning campus protests.
Even with the increase, most of the budget cuts remain in place – the University of the Witwatersrand, Cape Town, Rhodes, Stellenbosch, Natal and Peninsula Technikon said their subsidy levels would still only be 63%.
Wits said even with the new allocation, it faced a shortfall of R17-million. There is no reason “to think that further cuts will not be imposed in future national budgets,” said Wits representative Peggy Jennings. “We must assume that the latest partial reprieve is likely to be temporary.”
University of Cape Town representative Helen Zille said the new subsidy levels were “our worst-case scenario and will impose a very stringent financial regime on the university”.
The University of the Western Cape is to receive R9-million more than expected (it had been braced for a R27-million cut), while Stellenbosch is getting R2-million more (after expecting a R24,8-million cut). The extra funds for the University of the Western Cape still amount to a shortfall of R14-million, which will mean that salary increases will be below the level of inflation.
Pentech said that any subsidy level of less than 68% would still hurt, while the University of Pretoria warned that its capacity for a larger intake of students has been limited. The University of Durban- Westville said it was now searching for a longer-term solution to continued funding difficulties.
Bengu attempted to direct much of the increased allocation toward the so-called black institutions. But South African Students’ Congress Organisation (Sasco) national president Andile Sihlahla said the money still fell short of the funds necessary to benefit the formerly disadvantaged communities.
The reasons for campus unrest at the moment range from rows about fees – involving Sasco, the Pan African Students’ Organisation and various worker organisations – to straightforward attempted management coups, launched by disaffected academics.
The University of the North, which called in the police two weeks ago when student demonstrations turned violent, said this week the campus would reopen on Monday.
But the university, owed R54-million by its students, set preconditions for the reopening, including that there be “no taking of hostages during demonstrations” and “no barricading of exits and entrances to and from campuses”.