‘Others will gain if local varsities buckle’

Children from working-class and poor families will lose out on quality education, academics warn

Concern over the longterm effect of the university fees crisis is likely to push more wealthy parents to enroll their children to study at private or overseas institutions.

University leaders sounded this warning as the call for free higher education and a second consecutive 0% increase gains momentum.

Dr Sizwe Mabizela, vice-chancellor of Rhodes University, and Professor Yunus Ballim, vice-chancellor of Sol Plaatje University in the Northern Cape, said that, unless sustainable funding solutions are found, children in working-class and poor communities may have to settle for “qualifications of middling to mediocre quality” down the line.

Universities South Africa (Usaf), an association representing the vice-chancellors of the 26 public universities, recently stated that premature free education would result in wealthy families sending their children to private universities or to study abroad, “leaving the poor to receive substandard education”.

It said that, if tuition fees dried up, it would lead to unavoidable budget cuts and the quality of higher education would be compromised, with the sector “haemorrhaging staff” to more stable environments.

“Research could become compromised and academics demoralised,” Usaf said, adding that, ultimately, “the higher education sector would collapse”.

Mabizela and Ballim said there was an argument that the more affluent should be paying higher fees. “Indeed, many wealthy families send their children to private schools where the tuition fees are two to three times that of university fees and they sustain this for 12 years of schooling.”

They said that, although universal fee-free university education was a noble goal to pursue, “we should safeguard, and indeed enhance, the quality of our public higher education system. If we fail to do so, we run the risk of creating improved access to poor-quality higher education.”

The Mail & Guardian spoke to various international universities, which all confirmed that they were gaining in popularity with South Africans.

A total of 582 South Africans are either completing their undergraduate or postgraduate studies at 19 universities in the United Kingdom and the United States, according to a random survey conducted by the M&G. Significantly, 221 of them opted to pursue their first degree abroad rather than locally.

Dr Julia Paolitto, the media relations manager at Oxford University, said: “As international students, South African applicants are not eligible for the main university bursary scheme, but there are a number of scholarships they would be eligible for.”

The tuition fee for an overseas undergraduate student at Oxford is between R282 059 and R415 206, plus a separate college fee of R131 578.

In comparison, this year’s fees for an undergraduate degree at the University of the Witwatersrand ranged from R29 620 for teaching to R59 140 for medicine.

Cambridge University said its vicechancellor, Leszek Borysiewicz, had spoken passionately about the role that universities such as Cambridge should be playing to help more African researchers become leaders in their fields.

“This burgeoning relationship makes Cambridge a particularly welcoming and inspiring place for South African students and academics to work in.”

Chris Melvin, media and public relations officer at the University of Bath in the UK, said its 57 postgraduate students from South Africa included 27 from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth.

“We received applications for admission this coming year from 86 students who were either South African or domiciled in South Africa. Management is the most popular area, with 25 applicants this year,” he said.

Luke Walton, international press officer at the University of Warwick in the UK, said 71 South African students had applied for admission for the 2016/2017 academic year, including 35 for undergraduate qualifications.

He said most had enrolled for programmes in economics, law, English and comparative literary studies, complex systems science and French and German studies.

“Generally, South African students are self-funded. We have also received financial guaranteed letters from Deloitte Consulting Ltd, Standard Bank of South Africa and Arup (Pty) Ltd.”

Walton said 504 alumni of Warwick University lived and worked in South Africa, including Moeletsi Mbeki and former communications minister Yunus Carrim.

Chris Lane from University College London said: “Both self-financed and funded students come to UCL. Students from South Africa are able to apply for a number of scholarships offered either by UCL, the individual departments or from the government.”

Derek MacLeod, Africa regional director at t h e Un i v e r s i t y o f Edinburgh, said about 50 South African students graduated from the university last year.

“We do receive a large and increasing number of inquiries each year from South Africa [for admission]. The most popular subjects would typically be engineering, business and economics.”

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US confirmed that nine of the 12 South African students who enrolled last year were studying engineering.

South African-born Jeffrey Koseff, a professor of engineering at Stanford University who has lived in the US since 1977, said South African students mostly came with their own funding.

“This could have been personal or it could have been scholarships from South Africa. Over the years, I have personally known about eight to 10 students from South Africa studying engineering.

“Given that Stanford’s engineering school is the top school in the USA along with MIT, it is not surprising that they would seek to gain admission.”