Note To Editors: These remarks were delivered by ActionSA Member of Parliament, Malebo Kobe, during the budget vote debate for Higher Education in the National Assembly this afternoon.
There is a crisis in Higher Education.
Let us begin with access. Each year, over 337 000 learners achieve a Bachelor’s pass, yet there are only 202 000 university spaces available.
This is a slammed door in the face of achievement.
And for those who do make it through that door, they often find themselves with nowhere to sleep.
The student housing backlog stands at over 500 000 beds. At the start of each academic year, we see students sleeping in hallways, on floors and on the streets.
Then there is NSFAS, a bureaucracy of despair. If it’s not corrupt, politically connected contractors fleecing students and lining their own pockets, it’s the fact that the system itself is broken.
Because, Honourable Chairperson, each year, tens of thousands of “missing middle” students are excluded. Not because they failed, but because there is no funding available to them.
And NSFAS’s response? Silence. Its 2023/24 Annual Report is nine months overdue. On paper, this institution barely exists. In practice, it fails students without consequence.
And what of the SETAs making headlines?
ActionSA has consistently raised the alarm: these bodies are black holes consuming over R20 billion annually, with no transparency, no measurable outcomes and certainly no public confidence.
Walk out onto any street outside and ask a South African, “What do SETAs actually do?”. You will be met with silence.
Honourable Chairperson, it is interesting that the DA has, only in the past week, miraculously discovered its outrage and chosen to vote against this budget, despite these longstanding issues.
As ActionSA, we do not pick and choose moments of principle. Since entering this House in 2024, we have been clear: we will not support this department’s budget, because it fundamentally and repeatedly fails students.
At the helm of this disaster is a Minister who embodies indifference.
She concealed the names of a so-called “independent” SETA selection panel and then got caught. She buried our questions about departmental travel under 800 pages of bureaucratic obfuscation, concealing, among other things, a R11.2 million travel spree.
She seems incapable of addressing the crises facing her department and the crises she herself has either created or exacerbated.
ActionSA proposes real reform:
– Overhaul NSFAS leadership.
Support the missing middle by raising the NSFAS income cap to R500,000, and offer low-interest loans with repayments deferred until two years of employment capped at 10% of income.
– Convert hijacked buildings in our CBDs into student accommodation.
– Scrap broken SETAs and channel their budgets into our innovative Opportunity Fund.
There is none of that boldness in this budget and none of that vision under this Minister.
ActionSA Rejects Higher Education Budget on Principle, Not Political Expediency
Note To Editors: These remarks were delivered by ActionSA Member of Parliament, Malebo Kobe, during the budget vote debate for Higher Education in the National Assembly this afternoon.
There is a crisis in Higher Education.
Let us begin with access. Each year, over 337 000 learners achieve a Bachelor’s pass, yet there are only 202 000 university spaces available. This is a slammed door in the face of achievement.
And for those who do make it through that door, they often find themselves with nowhere to sleep.
The student housing backlog stands at over 500 000 beds. At the start of each academic year, we see students sleeping in hallways, on floors and on the streets.
Then there is NSFAS, a bureaucracy of despair. If it’s not corrupt, politically connected contractors fleecing students and lining their own pockets, it’s the fact that the system itself is broken.
Because, Honourable Chairperson, each year, tens of thousands of “missing middle” students are excluded. Not because they failed, but because there is no funding available to them.
And NSFAS’s response? Silence. Its 2023/24 Annual Report is nine months overdue. On paper, this institution barely exists. In practice, it fails students without consequence.
And what of the SETAs making headlines?
ActionSA has consistently raised the alarm: these bodies are black holes consuming over R20 billion annually, with no transparency, no measurable outcomes and certainly no public confidence.
Walk out onto any street outside and ask a South African, “What do SETAs actually do?”. You will be met with silence.
Honourable Chairperson, it is interesting that the DA has, only in the past week, miraculously discovered its outrage and chosen to vote against this budget, despite these longstanding issues.
As ActionSA, we do not pick and choose moments of principle. Since entering this House in 2024, we have been clear: we will not support this department’s budget, because it fundamentally and repeatedly fails students.
At the helm of this disaster is a Minister who embodies indifference.
She concealed the names of a so-called “independent” SETA selection panel and then got caught. She buried our questions about departmental travel under 800 pages of bureaucratic obfuscation, concealing, among other things, a R11.2 million travel spree.
She seems incapable of addressing the crises facing her department and the crises she herself has either created or exacerbated.
ActionSA proposes real reform:
– Overhaul NSFAS leadership. Support the missing middle by raising the NSFAS income cap to R500,000, and offer low-interest loans with repayments deferred until two years of employment capped at 10% of income.
– Convert hijacked buildings in our CBDs into student accommodation.
– Scrap broken SETAs and channel their budgets into our innovative Opportunity Fund.
There is none of that boldness in this budget and none of that vision under this Minister.