Somebody has to pay for ‘free’ education

THE Sunday Tribune spoke to two experts about the #FeesMustFall campaign and the impact it will have on the country.

Prof Patrick Bond

Patrick Bond a professor at the University of KwaZulu- Natal, where he has directed the Centre for Civil Society since 2004. His research interests include political economy, environment, social policy and geopolitics.

“If academia and politicians remember the lessons of last year, #FeesMustFall can win again. It was the most inspiring and surprising social movement to shake the State since the Treatment Action Campaign of the early 2000s.

“The primary demand – free tertiary education – is audacious. There are various cost estimates, but even the centre-right DA estimated late last year that free (albeit means-tested) tertiary education would cost only R35 billion a year, which would bring South Africa in line with relative funding commitments made by other states with substantial backlogs,” said Bond.

“Going on a national scale was the crucial ingredient. There is no way that, campus by campus, universities can shoulder the burden of zero fee increases now.”

Can students and their supporters in society repeat their success and put pressure at the national scale? If not, expect more tragic campus protests because unless it is solved nationally, the university funding crisis will certainly reoccur. is

Dawie Roodt

Dawie Roodt is a chief economist of the Efficient Group. He specialises in fiscal and monetary policy.

Roodt said it was important first of all to realise that there was no such thing as free education.

“Even if free education was implemented, it is not going to be free because some will have to pay for it. The reality is that taxpayers in South Africa are already overburdened. Asking if free education is feasible for South Africa is the wrong way of looking at it: The question should be what it is that we can afford to cut down on to finance free education,” said Roodt.

He said the answer lay in prioritising.

“We spend far too much money on some things. We are paying civil servants far too much, we have a massively big cabinet – we can cut there as well.

“We can rechannel money saved on unnecessary expenditure to pay for fees. We can’t do all of it, we have to prioritise.”