Sad day for students

I HAVE to say that the applicants applying to the universities are unbelievable and one has to ask what happens to all the kids who don’t get in.

We are talking thousands. For instance, on Google it is said, across the eight medical schools, there were 1 777 posts and 36 500 applied. So bring that down to about 35 000, if some redo their matric, then bring that down to, say, 34 000.

Then if a couple of thousand go the BSc route to get into medicine, we are still left with about 32 000 students with nowhere to go.

What do they do? There are not enough colleges, trades schools etc. being built so do they just hang around all day? Very sad. I feel for them.

There was a small article in the paper that at a KZN university, 50 000 applied for approximately 6 000 posts. The numbers were up as many who had not applied before because they could not afford it were now thinking that, because of President Zuma’s announcement of free tertiary education, they should apply.

Once again, what happens to the thousands who don’t get into the career of their choice?

What do they do? Surely the powersthat-be need to start urgently looking at building more universities, medical schools and more colleges etc. But where do we get that extra money from to do this?

The elephant in the room all over the world is there are too many of us for too little resources, so one has to feel for the students of today and tomorrow.

Education authorities need to start doing some serious thinking outside of the box. Barbie Sandler Claremont