R17bn pledged to tertiary education

FINANCE Minister Pravin Gordhan provided more increases for universities for the next three years yesterday, to deal with the ongoing problem of funding.

Gordhan told Parliament an additional R17 billion would be channelled to universities and students over the medium-term expenditure framework.

This year the government funded zero percent fee increases with an additional R5.7bn. Gordhan said the Treasury had allocated R8bn to fund fee increases for next year for students from families earning below R600 000 a year.

He said a further R9bn would be channelled to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme to help poor students.

Minister in the Presidency, Jeff Radebe, earlier told a media briefing that the government was working to bring about normality to universities.

“We just hope this mass action, the violence and destruction of property must end. We are appealing to stakeholders that we need to protect the future of our children,” he said.

Gordhan also told the media in a pre-budget briefing that education had become the second-biggest expenditure item in the budget, saying funding towards education had grown exponentially in the last 10 years.

He said the government had increased the funding from 1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) five years go to 1.5 percent currently.

Gordhan also said funding for post-school education would also increase from R68.6bn in 2016/17 to R76.6bn in the next financial year, R81.1bn in 2018/19 and would rise to R89.3bn in 2019/20.

He said there would always be competing interests in the government in terms of allocations, but higher education remained a top priority.

“We as society can’t expect the government to provide everything,” he said.

“This is not a government that is not listening. This is not a government that is not engaging. Treasury officials spend 15 hours a day in technical discussions.”

He called on all stakeholders to save the academic year for 2016.

Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande said he was happy with the increased allocations for higher education.

However, the government wanted to shift focus to colleges and expand the system.

Nzimande reiterated his message that not all students needed to go to university, but colleges were also intended to further develop students and produce artisans and other mid-level skills. “As a department we have a very ambitious turnaround strategy for colleges,” he said.

Gordhan said he had received several proposals on how to fund higher education from academics, students and other stakeholders, and he was seriously considering the proposals.