EDUCATION: Finding the funds for fees
Gigaba’s self-congratulatory move to fund free higher education for students from poor families comes with sacrifices
Free higher education can best be described as something of a scramble for SA’s government.Some had expected that free education would be a dream deferred, but President Cyril Ramaphosa, at his inaugural state of the nation address, assured the nation that this promise would be delivered on.Since the 2015 #FeesMustFall protests, free higher education has been a hot-button issue. With marches, and disruptions to lectures and exams, the issue has come to the fore at the end of every year.Then president Jacob Zuma’s unexpected announcement in December that government will subsidise free higher education by the 2018 academic year for poor and working-class students — referring to students from households with a combined annual income of up to R350,000 — threw a spanner in the works. Announced just ahead of the ANC elective conference, it was a political move. Few expected it, and national treasury had no plans to fund it.So where will the money come from?In a press briefing just before ...
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