Nzimande to set up talks to tackle campus wrecking
It’s an old ultraleft element. Trotskyites who have never really had political power in SA
HIGHER Education Minister Blade Nzimande intends to convene a meeting with students, vice-chancellors and traditional leaders by Monday to put a stop to student protests as damage to property approaches R1bn.
Destruction had cost more than R600m, Nzimande said on Tuesday, adding: “We are chasing R1bn in property destroyed over the last year.”
He said taxpayers would have to foot the bill for repairs to “poor” universities. The government would reach “some type of understanding” with wealthier universities.
Nzimande blamed “ultraleft” elements and “Trotskyites” as forces behind the destructive nationwide protests by students against university fee increases.
At the heart of the protests was an anti-ANC government agenda by elements that could not win power through the ballot box and wanted to discredit and destabilise the ANC government. He claimed that the EFF was a factor trying to destabilise the state.
“Now there’s clearly a political agenda. It can’t be that last year many or all student formations accepted the establishment of a presidential commission. Now all of a sudden they are going back on the same demand and say ‘we want free higher education’.”
Free higher education for all was not government policy and this would not change, although the government had conceded to subsidising students from households earning less than R600,000 a year.
Nzimande said some ultraleft academics who he claimed fuelled the interunion rivalry between mine workers in Marikana were also responsible. “Already at that time we were warned that the next underbelly of government is student fees.”
These forces claimed to be fighting against the capitalist class but they called for free education for all, including the rich. “It’s an old ultra-left element, Trotskyites who have never really had political power in SA.”
Meanwhile, Nzimande introduced interim board members of the National Board of Convocations and Alumni. The board held its first meeting on September 5. Convocations and alumni associations will play a mediating role between students and university management in areas of dispute. They have agreed to raise funds for university infrastructure and to encourage past recipients of the state’s financial aid scheme to repay loans.
Mbali Mkhonto, president of the University of Johannesburg Convocation, said: “It is important that we formulate a common agenda to benefit society and the country as a whole.”
The Institute of Race Relations said on Tuesday that SA’s youth challenges were a powder keg waiting to explode.
Unathi Matwasa, the institute’s lead analyst, said the economically active youth population was increasing at half the rate of the overall economically active population, pointing to “the low levels of economic inclusion of young people”.