National Financial Scheme crisis in the higher education, with rocketing tuition fees in the Universities.

TUT students.

The situation is appalling in the higher education, and it is the working class and poor youth of South Africa who are affected most. The recent financial crisis in the national funding scheme for students who are needy, have by length manifested and verified a need for a publicly funded higher education— a socialist education.

Number of NSFAS applicants has skyrocketed thus far, but this is upon a ground of dramatic upswing in NSFAS applicants in the past few years. The number of applicants has beyond doubts surpassed the budget of the scheme twice. Reports shows that NSFAS budget was R2.82 billion to 135 202 students applicants in 2009; R3.34 billion to 148 387 students in 2010; R4.83 billion to 216 874 students in 2011, and R5.87 billion to 194 504 students in 2012.

With University fees swelling and number of students requiring financial assistance rising, the allocated budget clearly cannot meet all the students in need. In 2014, R9 billion is allocated, whereas number of students applying for NSFAS has more than doubled since 2012, staying currently at 430 000. With BA degree costing somewhere around R34 thousands in average and in other varsities going as high around R45 to R50 thousands, it highlights the most exclusive character of Universities towards children from poor families. The higher the fees rises, the more a loan each student requires. This makes the attempt to increase the budget very stagnate in its scope, as not much fundamentally changes, especially the number to be funded. It is said; only half of the applicants will be funded this year.

Inasmuch as we may acknowledge that the scheme has been of help, we also realize that the scheme is not enough to put every kid who wants to go tertiary in university and college premises and therefore should come to its end, making a way for free education. This is the only way we can also get rid of ‘fees’— current bulwark barrier towards poor young people accessing higher education and obtaining qualifications.

Working class students will be unapologetic toward any attempt to win accessibility to higher education. They will not be apologetic toward fighting for their educational right. We support all student protests to fight against the current exclusive system of higher education; the department and its institutions, for realization of free quality education. We will continue to rally students to fight a publicly funded education from pre-school to tertiary.

In the course we will not forget students who are brutalized. 

Salute! Socialism 2014