Varsities reject no fees call
THE University of Limpopo (UL) told the Fees Commission yesterday that offering a fee-free higher education would result in universities losing their independence and autonomy.
And that would lead to them being “dictated” to by the state.
“In the absence of independence and in the absence of autonomy, the institutions will end up becoming state institutions,” said UL’s registrar Jeffrey Mabelebele.
UL and the University of Venda (UniVen) appeared before the commission yesterday in Thohoyandou, Limpopo. The commission was appointed by President Jacob Zuma in January to look into the feasibility of fee-free higher education following the #FeesMustFall protest by students last year.
Mabelebele said institutions were happy to receive support from the government but they must also be given room to raise money through either fees or private donor funding instead of being completely dependent on the government.
“But if we are going to rely heavily on state funding … there are many examples in the state-owned enterprises where institutions are bailed out year after year. The system of higher education in South Africa has been a shining example of how not to fall into the trap of state-owned enterprises, but if you want to introduce that kind of a culture where all of these institutions would have to line up in front of government begging for money then that is going to compromise completely their independence.
“Once their independence has completely been eroded then the state can dictate the terms of what needs to be done in the institutions and the very principle on which universities were founded would be undermined,” he said, adding the state could dictate to universities what they should teach or who to hire.
Commissioners argued that the state already “dictates” to universities on what they should spend the grants they get.
However, Mabelebele said that was “limited”. “We get block grants and we do what we want to do with them and then we get earmarked grants that come with conditions. If all the grants had to be earmarked, then our independence would be completely compromised,” he said.
UL and UniVen joined a chorus of other universities that have appeared before the commission arguing that fee-free higher education was not desirable in SA.
UniVen deputy vice-chancellor for operations, Jannie Zaaiman, said there was a lot of pressure on universities right down to the rising costs of utilities.
He said last year alone the university had spent over R36-million on rates, taxes and utilities. Zaaiman said universities needed to engage with local government to “create special rates, taxes and utilities for universities”.
He also said the university was proposing a 25% rebate for universities from local government and then pointed out that the university required an 8% fee increase to be able to sustain itself.