Free education not out of reach

SOUTH Africans have been gripped this week by the extraordinary drama that unfolded as the #FeesMustFall protest shut down campuses around the country and marched to the heart of the government – the steps of Parliament on Wednesday and the Union Buildings yesterday.

After a meeting with university heads and student leaders, President Jacob Zuma announced a moratorium on fee increases for next year – which students had demanded. How this will be achieved is yet to be revealed. It was the correct decision, but given the extent of the protests, the government really had little choice.

It is a pity that it took something close to an uprising to get to this point.

Elsewhere in this paper we explore the nature of the tertiary education funding crisis, which has meant not only the poor, but many from middle income families face a real struggle to further their education.

Extraordinarily, not only has our government been aware of this crisis, but it has kept under wraps a report that outlines how it is indeed possible to provide free tertiary education.

We would suggest that Minister Blade Nzimande was wrong about whether this is affordable. Reprioritisation and reallocation of available funds and planned expenditure is quite possible.

It requires the government to take a hatchet to slush funds, vanity projects, rollovers, surplus ministries and departments, the billions lost to wasteful expenditure and corruption, golden handshakes, money spent on the likes of PetroSA, the SABC, state arms outfits and the like. In short, political will is required.

Just short of 40 years since the 1976 student uprising the country’s students have once more taken to the streets to demand change.

We would suggest there is a lesson to be learned from these protests – it is high time that the government gives effect to the Freedom Charter and does what it takes to provide free and equal education from Grade R to post-school.