Chairperson, if you are seeking an education after you have finished school, or as an adult, you should expect to enter education institutions that are well managed, well equipped and pleasant; to experience a high quality, reliable, well-managed course or programme; to listen to and learn from the best possible people, who are highly qualified in their area.
To exit proudly with a qualification that employers will take seriously, that is fully up to date and has widespread recognition. Instead we have a department which has become swamped by the tsunami of student funding demands, and is now virtually synonymous with National Financial Aid Scheme, NSFAS. This doesn't mean student funding isn't important. Of course it is, but it has now become so all-consuming a concern, meaning that the department spends a vast amount of its time worrying about food allowances, travel vouchers, book money and accommodation, instead of learning, teaching and research. These are all important issues, of course, but not to the exclusion of other matters.
The Department of Higher Education and Training has no clear plan yet, for growing new programmes and skills relevant for the future; is planning for very small increases in student numbers for the next three years, and is caught in an insoluble bind. In spite of the billions put on the table, there is still insufficient funding for students who cannot afford fees or living expenses, there is a massive missing middle.
At the same time, the department knows perfectly well, that the levels of student funding at present are unsustainable in the long-term, but can't do anything about it. It has hobbled its oversight of university teaching, and operates on an outdated, disconnected syllabus in Technical and Vocational Education and Trainings, TVETs. It fails entirely to oversee rigorously an R18 billion budget like of Sector Education and Training Authorities, SETAs and National Skills Fund, NSF, to ensure that skills are taught well and properly. It Oversees a R2,5 billion budget, community education and training where 90% of its time is spent helping people rewrite their matrics, not really the function of a Higher Education Department.
This department manages a budget of R108 billion and has 110 entities reporting to it. And yet, not a single one of these entities has presented its budget and Annual Performance Plan, APP, to our committee. Concerning NSFAS, a R30 billion organisation which serves hundreds of thousands of students, is under administration, and it has been the site of constant, relentless criticism for the past 20 years, nothing.
Any of the 21 SETAs, which together receive R15 billion per annum, many of which have had to be put under administration over the years, which are widely regarded as unsuccessful and often have critical Auditor-General reports, nothing. Any of the 50 TVET colleges, many of which we know are failing and which have struggled to conform to the Public Finance Management Act, nothing. The R3 billion National Skills Fund, which appears to have become something of a piggy bank for random use, nothing.
All three quality oversight bodies, none of which are working ideally, nothing. It is also widely-known that several universities, which are autonomous, but in which the Minister is entitled to intervene when severe problems emerge, are in trouble, nothing. We have a major problem of oversight here. How can we blandly approve of expenditure in this troubled portfolio, with no clue of where the problems lie and if they are being addressed?
These issues do not appear to trouble the ANC members of our committee who will clearly support anything put in front of them, but we in the DA take oversight seriously. We cannot, in
good conscience, tell students that we are sure that what they are being offered is of adequate quality and we cannot tell taxpayers we think their money is being used as it should be.
Another point about oversight is that the department's own oversight over what is taught and what qualifications are like, is ominously weak. Built into this department is a Rolls Royce quality control system, in theory. The quality of our education and skills training is meant to be protected by two main bodies, the Council for Higher Education, CHE, for universities, and the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations, QCTO, for colleges and SETAs. But these two bodies have been decimated by underfunding.
We can see the results of this in the levels of qualification coming out of our system; everybody knows that graduates and certificated students are not well trained. Most SETA qualifications are not certificated by the QCTO. Many think that the billions spent on SETA courses are nothing more than tokens, given to students to justify the massive expenditure on often
inept course providers who are often in a patronage relationship with SETA management in many cases.
College qualifications are, as we shall point out later, unable to hold their own in today's job market. And universities vary far too much, those with their own rigorous quality control mechanisms, external examiners, certification by professional bodies and internationalisation being the most important, do deliver quality programmes. But many universities have given up on proper external examining and have decided to do it themselves.
They have become parochial and inward looking, failing to offer the quality required in every possible way. Many students leave such universities virtually unemployable; many of them badly advised by Universities keen to fill subsidised places, and obtaining qualifications which are not likely to lead to employment in the first place. None of this is picked up by the overburdened CHE, which just cannot do the job it is supposed to do.
The department now has been merged with Science and Technology as we have heard which we welcome. This is one the most sophisticated and advanced departments in government, geared entirely towards supporting, nurturing and developing the most advanced knowledge and skills. But at R8 billion a year, it is less than one tenth of the size of Higher Education. So, we have to ask: Will postgraduates start to receive levels of funding equivalent to that of undergraduates, or will they remain pitifully underfunded?
Will the mediocrity and paralysis of Higher Education affect its smaller but excellent partner; or will excellence be allowed to thrive, grow and in turn enrich the bigger partner? The situation in terms of quality is very serious, and it remains to be seen whether our new, old Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology has the energy and inclination to tackle it head on. For students and adults alike, we believe there is justification for grave concern as to whether much of the education and training they are receiving, is up to scratch. Students be warned.
Hon Mapulane, I would like to point out since you did make a personal attack on me that I'm very worried about the situation in Madibeng, which you left behind when you were fired as a municipal manager, and whether that has recovered from the situation. Thank you. [Applause.]