I am sometime dumbfounded when I listen to the national debate[s] in South Africa. We are talking a thing into reality; although any reasonable person will be able to tell you that it will never happen.
It seems to me that the notion in South Africa is that free tertiary education means mass access to poor (actually, to all) youth, where they will receive the same quality (and quantity) of education that students that are currently paying for their students.
That is not the case: Decisions result in actions, and actions have implications. For instance, to simple implement a new tax to pay for free tertiary education will not simply means more money, because it will result in divestment, the slowdown of economic growth and the loss of productive intellectual capital. Eventually, over the medium – to long-term, the country will actually have less resources available for higher education than before the tax increase.
The golden word is sustainability.
On Saturday, 16 December 2017, President Jacob Zuma introduced free tertiary education for poor and working-class students, in spite of the recommendations of the Report of The Commission of Inquiry into Higher Education and Training to The President of The Republic of South Africa that the country cannot afford it. Considering sustainability, it was not the action of a caring, responsible President, those of a populist trying to secure his own safety after the ANC Elective Conference and his Presidency; it is the decision of a President not understanding the capacity constraints of the country he is leading.
Poverty & Labour Absorption
There is overwhelming support for activists participating in the #FeesMustFall revolt that have been sweeping across South African universities. Even where criticism is levied, it is mostly done with an attitude of rejection of the violence and disruption that are part of the campaign, but with sympathy for the plight of the activists.
The poverty that has gripped large sections of especially and predominantly the Black population of South Africa is indeed sad and indeed a major stumbling-block preventing young people from this population group to improve their plight. It is also true that the inequality in the South African society, and the racial dimensions thereof, has caused enormous resentment among Black South Africans, and especially the youth. Furthermore, anyone who deny the destructive impact of apartheid and colonialism on the development opportunities of African communities are simply living in a lie.
One simply cannot ignore the reality of statistics. According to the results of Statssa’s 2011 Census, 33,95% of Black South Africans in the working age brackets are employed, 45,97% of Colourds, 53,79% of Indians and Asians and 67,44% of Whites. In terms of unemployed, 41% of Black South Africans in those age groups were categorised as unemployed, 37, 19% of Colourds, 37,5% of Indians and Asians and 27,52% of White South Africans.
Here’s the worst part of these statistics: The percentage of black African professional, managerial and technical workers aged 25 to 34 has dropped by 2% over the past 20 years, leaving that generation less skilled than previous ones – and less skilled than every other race and age group (Merten, 2016). This fact is the real ticking time-bomb.
It is further important to understand that access to education is indeed an almost non-negotiable necessity for young people to find decent employment and lift themselves and their love-ones out of the cycle of poverty and despair.
South Africa’s overall labour absorption rate, that is, the percentage of working-age people between 15 and 64 years of age, is just 41,3%. However, among people with tertiary qualifications, the absorption rate is close to 80%. Furthermore, 80% of persons with a degree or higher diploma earn more than R6,400 per month, compared to only 30% with matric and only 10% with secondary school qualifications. A total of 7% of those with a degree or higher diploma earn more than R51,200 per month; for persons with honours degrees and higher, the percentage is 15% (for the employed with lesser qualifications, the percentage is such negligible that it is noted as 0%) (Duncan, 2013).
It is clear that a tertiary qualification is a prerequisite for a better life. It is therefore understandable that access to tertiary education is a highly emotional issue in a poverty-stricken society.
However…
Nevertheless, here’s my however…
Firstly, South Africa cannot afford quality free tertiary education. Secondly, there’s a lack of respect in the activism for free tertiary education that contains a dangerous destructive potential, and has a deeper-rooted motivation than the apparent support for free tertiary education.
I am aware that even the Statistician General has expressed the opinion that, with proper planning, free higher education will be possible. I agree that, on paper, this may seem to be the case, but then it will definitely not be quality, globally competitive education that could stimulate sustainable educational and research excellence. South Africa is simply not rich enough; especially considering the magnitude of social welfare and poverty alleviation obligations facing government (and the taxpayers).
The proposed Health Insurance will cost the country a conservative R403 billion a year, based on a population 55,7 million. Total income from personal tax is only R387 billion per annum. (Urbach, 2017) South Africa’s current health budget is R39,395-44, and estimated to be R50,384-90 by 2019/20 (National Treasury, 2017). Free tertiary education is estimated to cost the country R71 billion a year (2015 estimates) (Phungo, 2015). An estimated R100-billion has been lost due to state capture. The economy is depressed, and grow at less than 1% per year; much less than the recorded inflation rate of almost 6%, with no realistic projection of future growth exceeding more than 1% over the coming MTEF period. Government is unable to balance its budget, and borrowing is all but out of control.
That big the question: Where must the money come from?
In November 2016 an article written by Floyd Shivambu, deputy president of the EFF, argued that it is possible to offer fee-free education to the majority of South African students. (Shivambu, 2016). I am going to refer to several of the arguments, because I am sure it represents the views of a broad church proposing fee-free tertiary education in South Africa.
The proposals in the article include the following: The raising of money through an education levy on pension funds, the skills levy, additional government funding and a corporate levy. The EFF proposed that an annual educational levy of 2,5% must be deducted from all pension funds. This alone, according to the EFF, will raise approximately R92,5 billion, which in itself will be enough to fund free tertiary education. The EFF further proposed that the skills levy must be increased from 1% to 2%. Another proposal is that income tax on companies must be raised by 4,9% (from the current 28%) to raise an additional R10 billion.
All typical socialist argument – and typical EFF, and (increasingly) typical ANC. Well, here’s the simple reality: The argument will only work in an ideal socialist context, where investors do not have much choices, and cannot simply leave South Africa for greener pastures; or, alternative, where tthey simply do not matter, because the country generates enough wealth be be economically self-sustainable, independent of global (and even internal) investors. In the Real World the implementation of the EFF’s proposal will spell the hasty disinvestment of everybody (and not only foreign investors) relying on the capitalist system of return-on-investment. Give this process a few years to play itself out, and for the net effect to filter down to the broader economy, and the goose laying the golden eggs would have been slaughtered. What will follow is free education among misery and dreadful poverty (and where a qualification will have little meaning because almost no job opportunities will be available) (and where no employer worth his or her salt will be interested in the quality produced by the South African tertiary education sector).
To allocate more money to tertiary education, government will have to either increase revenue, or re-prioritise spending. Increase revenue implies either dynamic economic growth, or higher taxes. Dynamic higher economic growth is a long-term objective (and the country is not currently on the path to realise that, precisely because there are too much of the EFF-type of proposals in the economy). Increase taxation will destroy the capacity of the South African economy to grow or even sustain its current ability to fund tertiary education.
There is a simple principle in budgeting called trade-offs. It simply means that choices have results and implications; if you allocate additional money to tertiary education in the absence of increasing revenues, you must reduce expenditure on another service (in South Africa, this imply money will have to be taken from basic education, health, social grants and so forth).
Just think about the social ramifications, in a poverty-stricken country such as South Africa. I you don’t do this, if you try to do everything, with inadequate resources, your debt increases until the economy simply collapse under the unbearable pressure thereof; or the World Bank and IMF enforce their borrowing rules on you, and the poor suffer unimaginably, because these global financing institutions are interested in monetary gains and not poverty reduction.
(I am secretly very worried that the money will come from Government’s Pension Fund).
There is indeed a global perspective
To some extent the issue of free tertiary education is indeed a global phenomenon. I am aware of the fact that Germany recently abolished fees at public universities, and of similar demands in the USA.
The core difference between South Africa and Germany is the fact that South Africa’s Gross Domestic Product is US$312-80 (2015, billion), in comparison with Germany’s US$3,363-45 (2015, billion). South Africa’s GDP per capita is US$7,575-24 (2015), in comparison with Germany’s US$45,269-79. Germany is five times richer than South Africa. (Trading Economics, Accessed January 2016) urthermore, don’t be fooled into believing that the famous European welfare state model is safe and intact; it is not, it is barely surviving under an enormous debt burden, which will ultimately catch up with these countries. And these as rich countries (very rich, in comparison with South Africa).
Let’s approach the same issue from another angle: In the USA there is also a debate about the issue of free tertiary education, and recent suggestions are that students from families with a net income of less than US$125,000 per annum (almost R2 million) must be allowed to study free of charge at public universities. However, note that all of the USA’s top universities (and currently mostly also among the top universities in the world) are private universities, and not public ones. This include Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, - Yale – and Princeton Universities, all of which is among the top ten universities in the world, and amongst them the best and second best. (This is obviously additional to the fact that the comparative wealth argument is just as valid for the USA as for Germany).
Resources
It cost a lot of money to attract and keep the services of reputable academics; not to even mention the infrastructure required to provide quality education. Free tertiary education will mean public universities with no fees payable; but also with no (or very little) sources required to ensure academic excellence (such as books, computers and lab equipment), with poorly maintained infrastructure, and without world-class academics. As it is, academic institutions fight an uphill battle to attract the best quality professionals, precisely because they cannot compete with remuneration packages offered by other institutions.
Despite all the (often sheer irrational) debate about it, you can take it as a certainty that, under such a system, there will be much, much less resources available to fund anything in tertiary education but the mere presence of student in class and a poorly qualified lecturer in front of it. Gradually South African universities will become third-rated, uncompetitive and archaic institutions that offer qualifications with very little value in a highly competitive global context.
All of this simply boils down to one thing, and that is that South Africa cannot afford free tertiary education. You need enough resources to maintain quality (also considering increasing quantity) for a free fee model to work; South Africa doesn’t have it.
An Unfolding Revolution
There is a deep-rooted, difficult to define political agenda underlying to the #RhodesMUstFall and #FeesMustFall actions. Politically it is impossible not to note the coincidence of the establishment of the EFF, with its fundamentalist populist, racist and revolutionary policies, and the eruption of discontent at University campuses. I hate to use a term I normally despise, but it seems likely that there’s a Third Force behind the activism.
Tertiary education has become a political tool in South Africa. Part of the aims of #FeesMustFall is decolonialised education. The #FeesMustFall campaign was preceded by #RhodesMUstFall. This revolt was all about removing the visible presence of colonialism on South African campuses.
Contrary to popular believe in more traditional academic circles, I do actually believe that there is a need for more African-focused science. It is not that I believe that tried and tested (and globally recognised) theories must be thrown out of the window; just that we must put more effort in exploring traditional African wisdom when we formulate, apply and teach theories.
However, theory development and structured knowledge creation must take place in a context of reasoned argumentation, research trials (and the realisation that it may fail) and of respect among peers (despite differences). Outside this context, one doesn’t formulate value-adding theories, but rather impractical, artificial “solutions” that do not solve anything, and/or destructive anarchy.
#RhodesMUstFall and #FeesMustFall are characterised by a demise of discipline, public show of contempt for authority figures and institutions, violence and damage to property.
Globally respected academics, vice-chancellors of universities among the top 100 in the world, are blatantly disrespected and humiliated. That is a bad, bad sign of a society in anarchy, a community in demise, and not of one building for the future. Students may think that you have won when you force a person such as the highly-respected Prof. Max Price to sit down on the ground and speak only when they (twenty-something, inexperienced youth that has done nothing yet to deserve the respect of the global academic fraternity) allow it (through brute force), but merely by doing such a thing, the respect that underpin any disciplined system, has been destroyed.
The process of destruction is self-sustaining; the more student activists achieve through violence and destruction, the more they demand, and the more they disrupt, disrespect and destroy.
It was on the cards that the government will most probably eventually give in and agree to free tertiary education. The agitators of #FeesMustFall and similar campaigns will proclaim it as a victory. Society, and respected academics and other thought leaders much cleverer than myself will support the move. I think it will be the death of quality tertiary education in South Africa, and the beginning of the end of the country’s (and some of Africa’s) proudest academic institutions.
Quality, the Ultimate Victim
With universities needing to compete with our government priorities on the national budget, and subjected to government regulation, which is dependent on the one that control the money, quality education will be offered on the stakes in favour of mass education and political ideology. The best and brightest of South Africa’s youth will increasingly divert to private tertiary institutions; and, without doubt, to foreign institutions, where they will be free of the destructive impact of free tertiary education, loaded with political ideology. South Africa is going to lose at least half of them (those that will never return to the country) and we will be lucky if any of them join public academic institutions. They will become the sought-after graduates, the cream-of-the crop that will be paid the big bugs. Because of this, students at public institutions will go on the rampage again to protest the unfair and unequal access to education. In response, government will clamp down on these institutions, and they will gradually close down (especially considering the current rather rapid implementation of socialist’s policies in the country). Eventually, the cream of South Africa’s intellectual capital will be lost to the country forever.
I will not patronage readers by pretending to understand the plight of poor students today.
The point I want to make is that there’s a difference between the theory and the practical, between what is theorised and what is actually possible for a country with South Africa’s development profile and status. If the wrong path is now chosen, we will destroy the capacity for future success. There is no substitute for doing what is necessary. All modern successful countries (such as Germany and USA) were built on the sacrifices of past generations, without exception. Only if we do that will we be able to construct a society where future generation could contemplate affordable free tertiary education because it will then be affordable; because we accepted the preciously little capacity we have today to make it work.
Bibliography
Duncan, F. (2013, January 13). Education and employment in South Africa. Retrieved from Moneyweb.co.za: http://www.moneyweb.co.za/archive/education-and-employment-in-south-africa/
Merten, M. (2016, April 16 (Downloaded Jan 17)). The Great Reversal: Stats SA claims black youth are less skilled than their parents. Retrieved from Daily Maverick: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-04-18-the-great-reversal-stats-sa-claims-black-youth-are-less-skilled-than-their-parents/#.WHdp4n34Fxg
Shivambu, F. (2016, November 4). 'Yes, we can easily raise the funds for fee-free education'. Retrieved from Sunday Time.
Trading Economics. (Accessed January 2016). SA / Germany GDPs. Retrieved from Trading Economics: http://www.tradingeconomics.com
National Treasury. (2017, February 22 (Accessed December 2017). Estimates of National Expenditure, 2017. Retrieved from National Treasury: http://www.treasury.gov.za/documents/national%20budget/2017/ene/FullENE.pdf
Phungo, R. (2015, October 21 Accessed December 2017). University fees: Free higher education is possible in South Africa. Retrieved from Daily Maverick: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-10-21-university-fees-free-higher-education-is-possible-in-south-africa/#.WjVk-lWWaUk
Urbach, J. (2017, April 14). Government’s NHI plan is based on squeezing out private healthcare. Retrieved from Business Day Live: https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2017-04-14-governments-nhi-plan-is-based-on-squeezing-out-private-healthcare/
This article has been written in 2017 and some of the assumptions or reference in it may be outdated
Image source: Pixabay
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