Blade blames Mbeki policies
IT IS the Mbeki administration’s fault that the country’s public technical colleges continue to be plagued by gross under-funding. This is according to Blade Nzimande, minister of higher education and training, who addressed journalists in Pretoria yesterday. Nzimande conceded that the South African Further Education and Training Student Association (Safetsa) – a body that champions students’ interests in the technical, vocational, education and training (TVET) sector – has raised legitimate grievances on the shortcomings of the institutions. Safetsa threatened to shut down campuses of 50 TVET colleges until the department resolved a range of thorny issues in the sector.
Nzimande said the association was spot on in its complaints about infrastructure at many campuses. He admitted that student accommodation and lecture halls were not up to standard. “There has been no money for a very long time for maintenance or for expansion,” he said.
“We really need huge government investment. We hope that the ANC policy conference this year is going to help us in terms of making some unambiguous commitment to expand the TVET college sector.”
Pressed by Sowetan on who exactly in that government he was blaming for the bad state and under-funding of colleges, Nzimande pointed fingers at Mbeki’s Gear (growth, employment and redistribution) policy.
“I’m not lamenting or blaming the rest of [the current] government. One thing I’m willing to say [is] that part of the reasons why we’re here is because our own government in the 1990s followed a problematic economic policy called Gear. If you ask me sitting as a minister, this is part of the price we’re paying.
“One of the things that Gear did was not to fund higher education adequately. We’re paying the price now… Some of us were raising this at that time and [saying] ‘OK we’re saving money but what would be the social debt into this?’’.
He said higher education was one of the victims of “having experimented with neo-liberal policies”.
He blamed no particular individual in the incumbent regime. “But now I’m part of government. We must take collective responsibility for the situation in which we’re in.
“By the way, in government it’s generally agreed [we must expand the sector]. The issue is when and how do we release resources. Our white paper has been adopted by government.”
Nzimande also lashed out at statistician-general Pali Lehohla for saying the country’s universities proportionally now churned out less black students compared to the ’80s.
Lehohla told reporters earlier this week that black students now generally struggled to graduate.
Said Nzimande: “I really do not agree with this. Government officials must avoid making political statements that they can’t take responsibility for.”
Nzimande said he can attest that they were worse off compared to the current crop of black students.
“I’m talking from personal experience. I was nearly expelled from varsity in September 1977 because I couldn’t pay R100, my last instalment and there was no National Student Financial Aid Scheme.”
Mukoni Ratshitanga, Mbeki’s
“We must take collective responsibility for the situation
spokesman, lashed out at Nzimande, saying he was diverting attention from his own failures.
“One would have thought that Nzimande now understands that the tendency to blame everything, including the drought, on Mbeki is no longer profitable,” he said.
“Nevertheless, he has been minister of higher education since 2009. The population expects someone in his position to do his job and not become a specialist in diversions of a nuisance value.”