Daily Dispatch
Education not a political game
THOUSANDS of university students returned to campuses yesterday to register for their academic programmes for the new year.
But unlike previous years when a few prospective students would make a lastminute dash for the last available places, there is an expectation that thousands of poor young people – buoyed by the populist call made by Julius Malema and leaders of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) – will turn up at the doorsteps of our 26 universities and 50 TVET colleges this week. In his end-of-year message, Malema encouraged those who had passed Grade 12 but could not afford to attend university due to lack of funds, to report at institutions of higher learning for registration this week.
Malema was responding to the premature announcement by President Jacob Zuma last month that government would introduce free higher education for the poor and working class students. This includes those students who come from households whose combined annual income is R350 000.
“We call upon all those who passed matric extremely well in the past and found themselves as petrol attendants‚ retail or security workers because they couldn’t afford university fees to report at the academic institution of their choice (in 2018).
“The EFF will be at the gates of all learning institutions to ensure that priority is not only given to those who can afford to pay‚” said Malema.
Malema knows that our universities neither have the capacity nor the infrastructure to accommodate all the needy students. But he is merely playing dangerous politics to show up the bareness of Zuma’s announcement.
The reality is that government does not have a ready-to-implement plan to introduce free education. This point has already been made by the Treasury.
Basically Zuma announced a plan without the mechanics of how government intended to fund free universal higher education for the poor.
This left universities scrambling to finding a solution to avert a disaster while bemoaning the fact that they were not consulted before Zuma made the announcement.
In true Zuma style, he has created the mess and expects someone else to clean it up.
Everyone agrees that higher education is expensive and thus remains inaccessible to thousands of poor school-leavers.
A proper plan has to be put in place to address the issue.
Weekend reports indicated that campuses had beefed up their security in anticipation of the high turnout of desperate students.
Instead of providing leadership to avert a disaster, Malema chose to play politics. We have been down this road before. A young woman was killed and 17 others injured during a stampede at the University of Johannesburg in 2012.
We do not want to see a repeat of that. No young person should die fighting to get an education. And no politicians should play with the emotions of the poor.
We need responsible leaders, not the likes of Zuma and Malema.