Fees findings are imminent, Zuma says

THE findings of the crucial Fees Commission on free higher education were set to be released in a matter of months.

Yesterday President Jacob Zuma announced that the commission, which he set up last year, has finished its work.

The commission was set up following the first wave of violent fee protests at higher education institutions. Students demanded that free education be implemented and Zuma set up the commission to investigate whether it might be feasible.

Fees Commission spokesman Musa Ndwandwe confir med t he investigation has been completed.

He said Judge Jonathan Heher had two months to complete the report and send it to the president for consideration. Zuma will then release the findings.

“We have completed our work but don’t know when the judge will send it to the president. It might be today or any time in the next two months,” Ndwandwe said.

Zuma told the ANC policy conference in Johannesburg that one of the key issues affecting the country’s youth was funding for higher education and jobs.

He reiterated that the party’s policy conference in 2007 resolved to offer free higher education for the poor at least until they finished their undergraduate education.

“This policy conference will provide for robust discussion of the possibilities for providing quality affordable higher education to as many South Africans as possible and free education for the poor.”

Higher Education Minister and national executive committee member Dr Blade Nzimande has always told students that gover nment doesn’t have money to pay for blanket free education.

The department and the National Students Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) this year introduced the Ikusasa Financial Aid Scheme to aid “missing middle” s t udents. They are those who can’t af ford to pay for fees and still don’t qualify for NSFAS.

Zuma said the funds allocated to the NSFAS for loans and bursaries to students at public universities and Technical and Vocational Education and Training colleges have increased substantially from more than R2 billion in 2009 to more than R12bn in the current fiancial year.

He said government needed to pay better attention to the large population of young people in the country.

“These young people have very little to no real experience of the brutality of apartheid. The ANC needs to adapt and become responsive to the needs of our youth today. It must talk to their interests, from access to education, jobs, the need to reduce data costs, entrepreneurship to general social issues of concern to them,” he said.