Who should be responsible for providing free higher education?
State, business should join hands, say experts
Last week’s Unisa Sowetan Dialogues held at Unisa Parow campus in Cape Town provided a platform for a panel of experts, together with an interactive audience, to debate the issues surrounding the provision of free higher education in South Africa.
While most in attendance agreed that higher education should be free, concerns were raised about the challenges of achieving this and in turn how academic institutions could start to make the shift to decolonisation of education.
Some of the key topics debated were: who should fund free education, where would the money come from? Government? Businesses? Loans?
Two of the panelists for the evening were Dr Reginald Sethole Legoabe (chairman: Higher Education Transformation Network) and Professor Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni (professor: Change Management Unit: Unisa), both specialists in transformation and experts in their fields.
Legoabe made the argument that education was a constitutional right and as such, investment in it needs to be made. However, the government should not be expected to do this alone but rather in collaboration with business.
Legoabe feels that as businesses are the beneficiary of our educated students they should, therefore, be investing in them. To many, this may seem like a cost they are unwilling to pay; however, education directly impacts the future of the SA economy and how we compete globally.
In order to fund education effectively, Legoabe also made the point that not all universities are equally wealthy and when it comes to providing this funding, poorer institutions need more assistance from outside sources.
Universities who have the means need to then also change their mindset to try and help bring about this change for all institutions.
Facilitator Dr Somadoda Fikeni made the point that LLB and BCom degrees are priced differently at different universities, for the same qualification. Thus, changes need to be made to tertiary institutions to have comparative prices.
Ndlovu-Gatsheni believes that the way South Africans think about education needs to change.
In order to define South Africa as a knowledge-driven society, investment needs to be made. His view is that the government should be prioritising education. He asked why this was not reflected in the budget. With an impassioned debate between panelists and the public, one thing was clear: South Africans are passionate about education.
‘‘ Education is a constitutional right, as such investment should be done