Significant progress in access to tertiary funding - Nzimande

Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande says the sector is ready for the 2017 academic year. “We are not saying that there aren’t any glitches, but we are ready to absorb the numbers that we [have capacity] to take,” said Nzimande yesterday.

He was briefing the media on the outcomes of engagements with higher education stakeholders to discuss preparations for the 2017 academic year.

The Minister held the meetings between 17 and 24 January 2017 with a range of higher education stakeholders, including university stu- dent leaders, university vice chancellors as well as the Executive of the South African College Principals’ Organisation representing principals of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges, and the Technical Vocational Education and Training College Governors Council (TVETCGC) representing TVET College Councils.

During the engagements, stakeholders discussed the need for the country to ensure, over the medium to long term, that Post-School Education and Training (PSET) is funded at an appropriate level, and that sufficient financial aid is made available to support all academically deserving, financially-needy university and college students, through loans, grants and bursaries, while keeping student fees affordable.

Nzimande said significant progress had been made in expanding access to higher education for the poor through the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), with more than 1.7 million students funded since 1994.

“Last year alone, NSFAS supported about 480 000 poor undergraduate students to access TVET colleges and universities, disbursing loans and bursaries totalling R14 billion. This figure will rise to R15.2bn this year.”

As stated in the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement, the government will provide an additional R9 billion for NSFAS over the next three years.

NSFAS will be funding more than 200 000 first-time and continuing students at TVET colleges in 2017.

Nzimande acknowledged that money alone would not solve the problems, as there were many issues raised by students during the summit held in Durban in 2015.

Speaking to SAnews, CEO of Universities SA, Ahmed Bawa, said they were happy that the government had stepped in and that they had arrived at a common understanding on how to deal with the issue of NSFAS students' historic debt.

He said the universities would work closely with the students and their families to ensure that tsuccessful students were given an opportunity to continue with their studies.

“We are very happy that there’s such a lot of progress made with regards to NSFAS students.

“That’s a huge advance, and we are all hoping that over a period of time, the facility would be expanded to include students from the missing middle,” Bawa said.

Hellen Ntlatleng, the President of the South African Colleges Principals’ Organisation, said, “We have increased pass rates at colleges and have even increased our interaction with industries. They take us more seriously than before. A lot of government institutions are now partnering with us, and we have moved from being job seekers to job creators.

“With the Department of Small Business Development, we have created Centres for Entrepreneurship in nine provinces. We are building incubation centres where we are teaching our students how to become entrepreneurs.

“For me, that’s excellent and shows great improvement,” said Ntlatleng, who is also a principal at Ekurhuleni West TVET College.

– SAnews.gov.za