A witches’ brew of grievances — including fees, transport costs, language demands and state plans to slash student numbers — underlines this week’s turmoil on newly merged campuses.
Students and university managements clashed as police cracked down at the universities of Johannesburg, Pretoria and Tshwane.
One issue underlying the visible conflict is proposals that all universities received last year from the national Department of Education. These specify how many students each university can enrol as of 2007. In many cases the proposals mean universities will have to reduce their student intakes within two years — and some have already started doing so.
But this does not mean that the doors of learning are closing, Minister of Education Naledi Pandor told the Mail & Guardian on Thursday.
“Students now have greater access to higher education than ever before. Financial aid through the government bursary scheme is greater than ever.”
On the controversial plan to limit the numbers of students that universities can enrol, Pandor said: “The enrolment cappings we are discussing are intended to diversify options for students. But there are no plans in place yet; we are still discussing them with universities.”
In any case, “universities are not the only option for students. We are raising the profile of other options such as further education and training colleges”.
Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel on Wednesday pledged R1-billion for upgrading college infrastructure this year.
George Subotzky, director of the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at the University of the Western Cape, said: “The whole capping exercise comes from a climate of fiscal constraint … there is a paradox in the government reversing the whole trend towards expansion in higher education.”
He referred to Saleem Badat, CEO of the Council for Higher Education, saying on numerous occasions that the government is now using “a newspeak of affordability”.
University of Johannesburg interim vice-chancellor Professor Roux Botha said capping the numbers had never been raised as one of the reasons for student protests.
Botha said students’ concerns focused on transport between campuses, student involvement in the governance of the university and the use of English and Afrikaans as dual media of instruction.
Following the merger of three institutions to create the university, students said, certain subjects are only offered at the Johannesburg campuses — increasing black students’ transport costs. Students also argued that dual medium instruction is a waste of resources that could be better used to address the problem of fees and other grievances.
Manuel announced this week that just more than R750-million would be available for student loans. That’s not enough, according to Allan Taylor, chief executive officer of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), who said “I estimate we would have needed around R500-million extra this year.
“Even for lower-middle-class families, the percentage of their disposable income spent on higher education has risen from about 13% to 23% over the last 10 or 15 years. These are families that do not necessarily qualify for NSFAS grants and many are struggling to service debts they have incurred to educate their children at university.”
Students said it is the turn of big business to come to the party and contribute to the higher education kitty.
South African Students Congress secretary Nqaba Bhanga said that while they welcome government’s contribution, “we will rest only when the last poor student who deserves higher education is sitting behind a desk and is being taught”.
Bhanga said it was big business’s turn to show commitment to higher education and he added that it could do so by contributing to student loan schemes such as the NSFAS and by investing more in the skills development sector.
Spokespersons for the universities of Pretoria and Tshwane had not responded to requests for comment by the time of going to press.