Chairperson, hon Minister, hon Deputy Minister, hon members present, the Director-General of Higher Education and Training, and all the guests, I greet you all. As you know, education has been set as a societal issue in this country by President J G Zuma. We therefore cannot stop talking about it, particularly about access to higher education and training.
Education is very important in enabling every member of society to realise his or her potential and participate in social and economic life, thus contributing to the reduction of inequality, which is one of the challenges we face as a country. For us to bridge the skills shortage we need to address the issue of access to education. There are many understated factors that hinder access to education for many learners and students. These include financial exclusion, variation in admission policies, accommodation shortages at our institutions of higher learning, racism and many others. If these issues are not addressed, we will see them continue to haunt the system. Our expectation is that the budgeting process that we are involved in now should steadily address the factors that hinder access to higher education and training.
Ngiyafisa ukudlulisa amazwi enkuthazo nethemba kuNgqongqoshe wethu lapho esithembisa khona futhi eqhubeka nokuzibophezela nokulwa kanye nokuvula amathuba amaningi okuthi abafundi bethu babe nezindawo abangaya kuzo uma befuna ukuqhubeka nemfundo. Ekuzibophezeleni kwakhe uthe ngonyaka wezi-2014 sizobona ukuvulwa kwamanyuvesi amabili kulezi zifundazwe esikhuluma ngazo. Lokho sikwamukela ngezandla zombili. Siyakwamukela futhi siyathemba ukuthi kuzokwenzeka ukuze abantwana bethu bakwazi ukuqhubeka nemfundo eseqopheleni eliphezulu ngendlela ekhululekile. (Translation of isiZulu paragraph follows.)
[I would like to convey some words of encouragement and hope to our Minister since he promised to commit to fighting for the creation of many opportunities for our students at institutions where they can further their studies. In his commitment, he said that in 2014 we will see the opening of two universities in the provinces that we are talking about. We welcome this fully, and we believe that it will happen in order for our children to be able to continue with higher quality education freely.]
Regarding financial exclusion, in the Medium-Term Strategic Framework 2009- 2014 the government committed itself to the notion that financial need must not be a barrier to access to postschool education. We applaud the sterling work that NSFAS has done since its inception in ensuring that academically deserving students are able to access education and in contributing to skills development in this country. Some of us seated here were beneficiaries of this scheme and NSFAS continues to serve the purposes of addressing the issue of the needy in our country.
However, we are saddened by the fact that there are students who continue to face the challenge of financial exclusion. Institutions continue to apply the principle of top-slicing when allocating NSFAS funds because of the higher number of NSFAS applicants. While this principle ensures that every applicant gets funded, the "one size fits all" approach does not always help. For example, students are allocated the same amount despite the programmes they have registered for. The fact that some students are enrolled in programmes that demand higher tuition fees than others is not considered. For example, a Bachelor of Science will not cost the same as a Bachelor of Arts, but you find that institutions allocate the funds in a "one size fits all" manner. Minister, we are happy about the announcement today that the NSFAS board is now in place. Everybody is there. We think these issues need to be addressed to ensure that the objectives of NSFAS are achieved.
We were at the University of Zululand at the beginning of this year as part of our oversight role in KwaZulu-Natal. We were told that the through-put rate of the institution was 14,78% in 2010, which is well below the national average. That is of concern. Among other causes, this poor through- put rate was attributed to the drop-out rate among many students owing to financial difficulty. Some institutions force students who are NSFAS beneficiaries to pay upfront in order to enable the universities to have operational funds while they await the transfer of their block of the subsidy grants from the department. How on earth can we expect needy students to pay these upfront payments? Those are all the issues that need to be addressed despite all the efforts that the government might be putting in place. We really need to go to those institutions of higher learning to make sure that these issues are addressed, because they block or exclude learners or students who come from poor backgrounds and are known to be historically disadvantaged.
HON MEMBERS: Hear, hear!