Solving affordable education is a tricky task

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I believe many will sympathise with students who have to fork out more than a R100 000 for a degree, no matter who you are, but we should never condone the use of violence to enforce the right to education.

Violence begets violence, and violence in itself is an uneducated approach to solving problems.

Let us not digress by bemoaning our youth’s lack of civility, but let us rather focus on the validity of the students’ claims that fees are too high and the refusal to even settle for capped increases.

There are several points to consider if we talk about fees.

The reality is fees at universities are rising at a faster rate (an estimated nine to 12 per cent each year) than just about everything else we buy.

Protests at Wits University, after all, erupted because a 10.5 per cent increase was proposed.

Proposed increases are, thus, higher than inflation, and higher than most company yearly increases. So, already, there is a definite problem when it comes to the cost of education.

Also consider, a rough estimate suggests it costs an average of R30 000 per year for university fees – and more if your child chooses a technical or highly specialised discipline.

It is estimated that if your child is eight years old today, you can expect to pay more than R350 000 for four years of education at any of the universities in South Africa after he or she turns 18 in 2025.

For a child who is still a baby today, one year of tertiary tuition could easily balloon to R150 000 per year.

Costly? Definitely.

We also have to keep in mind that, according to the Bill of Rights, all South Africans have the right to a basic education, including access to further education.

The state has, thus, an obligation, through reasonable measures, to progressively make this education available and accessible.

Our government is, in fact, doing its bit, but some might argue more needs to be done. South Africa after all has one of the highest rates of public investment in education in the world.

South Africa is also blessed with a vibrant higher education sector, with 23 state-funded tertiary institutions. There are thus plenty of options available to obtain one’s education.

Therefore, the government is certainly assisting where possible to make education on a higher level possible.

Granted, higher education institutions only receive a small slice of the government’s overall education budget, with state contributions to university education declining over the years, while the burden on students is increasing.

This reality is supported by Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande, who reportedly said at the beginning of the year that the government is underfunding the institution,

He raised concerns that SA’s allocation of only 1.4 per cent of the gross domestic product to higher education was too low.

Despite receiving state subsidies and fees, one should also not forget that some if not many of South Africa’s universities have investment and endowment funds in their reserves, which are largely used for infrastructure developments.

With all of this hindsight, providing affordable education becomes a tricky matter.

Right now, it seems to be a case of all parties involved needing to re-assess their roles and needing to sit around a table.

Places of higher learning need to realise that current fees are without a doubt exorbitant, plunging thousands of students into massive debt which is not good for the country’s economy.

The government also has its part to play and it needs to look at how to boost its contribution to the education fund.

This can be done by adding a financial injection to the government’s student loan and bursary scheme (NSFAS), which needs billions more to fund all qualifying university students.

A possible one per cent of the Skills Development Levy could possibly be directed to NSFAS.

The Congress of the People made an interesting point when it comes to the role of government, citing that Malaysia, two decades ago, not only supported its students in Malaysian universities, but sent a large number of them abroad to acquire the knowledge the country needed.

It thus invested heavily in knowledge. Maybe our government needs to take the same approach more than ever.

Cope also lays the blame on the Zuma administration, for consuming vast amounts of resources internally to sustain a massive cabinet and a bloated bureaucracy.

Cope feels downsizing government could easily release another R3-billion to R5-billion for tertiary education.

Providing affordable education ultimately sits in the same boat as providing quality yet affordable health care, considering SA sits with very expensive private medical institutions, but also dodgy yet cheaper state hospitals.

At the end of the day, education is key to a thriving South Africa, and so a solution needs to be found so that our market places become saturated with valuable skills to the benefit of all.