Speech by the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Dr Blade Nzimande
Student Representative Council Capacity Building Workshop
Burgerpark Hotel
28 February 2013
Programme Director
Director-General
Members of the Students Representative Councils
Officials of the Department of Higher Education and Training
Officials of the Provincial Departments of Education
Student Support Services Managers
Delegates
Comrades
Ladies and Gentlemen
Avuxeni! pronounced as “abusheni”
Introduction
It is a great honour for me that for the first time, I have an opportunity to officially engage with the elected student leadership of our most important sub-sector of the post-school education and training landscape, the Further Education and Training colleges. This opportunity comes at the back of an equally important meeting I had with principals and deputy principals of FET colleges in 2011. On 16 February this year, I had a workshop with our entities in Cape Town to reflect on some of the issues that I am going to talk about today. Today’s unique encounter is particularly special for me in that it provides a different discussion tone, premised on a progressive approach to development and nurturing a new generation of cadres. This undertaking could not have come at a better time when our institutions desperately need organic and selfless student leadership than ever before.
Context
Perhaps let me begin by affirming the context in which our education and training, and the execution of your leadership role takes place. South Africa finds itself at an important cross-road; having to constantly make critical decisions about the kind of society that it wants to become. In the wake of this cross-road, government adopted broad developmental framework outlined in the National Development Plan (NDP) which works in tandem with other key sectorial specific strategies, especially the New Growth Path (NGP), the Industrial Policy Action Plan (iPAP), the Integrated Rural Development Strategy (IRDS), the DST’s Ten Year Innovation Plan and, of course, the Human Resources Development Strategy (HRDS). I cannot get into details, instead I urge you all to familiarise yourselves with and to become the custodians of these important policy frameworks.
As the central compass for all government programmes, the NDP sets a developmental roadmap for the country, drawing our attention to a national vision for 2030. This important document has once again affirmed the need for quality education and training, especially in the vocational education and training sector. To this end, government has therefore placed FET colleges at the nerve-centre of this development pathway as illustrated in the policy frameworks I have just mentioned. This puts upon your shoulders even more responsibilities than just a voice of student body. I must say though, that this does not negate the fact that you are more of students, and like any other student, you are expected to spend most of your time studying. As role models for your peers and constituencies, you must accomplish both learning and leadership responsibilities with distinction. I trust that ‘You Can Run and Shoot at the Same Time’, one of the popular militant slogans during the 80s.
Comrades, the 1976 generation placed education at the centre of their struggle for achieving substantive change in South Africa. In the process, they built and left huge legacy of selfless leadership and commitment which we all have to emulate, protect and promote. Above all, our actions and deeds must serve also to honour the cause for which so many of them fought and died.
As ‘cadres of the national flag’, I mean, growing up and maturing in a democratic and complex environment, characterised and shaped by the historical past and circumstantial challenges, you are expected to demonstrate sophisticated, progressive and vigilant leadership qualities. The national flag and the policy frameworks that I have alluded to earlier, represent opportunities for you as a new generation of leadership to optimally exploit your diverse and sophisticated talents to lead us in this journey towards realising the goals that we have set for ourselves as a nation.
As the Department, we have recommitted ourselves to meeting all South Africans’ various educational and skills needs, and to embrace the value of responsible and accountable leadership. This workshop is but one them and I hope that by the end, you will emerge with a much focused approach, renewed sense of energy and selfless commitment, the legacy that we inherited from the `76 generation.
Challenges
As leaders in your individual institutions, you would be aware of the challenges we continue to face in the sector. Our colleges continue to bear the imprint of a harsh and unequal legacy of apartheid as exemplified by serious infrastructural disparities, lack of facilities and equipment, and to some extent, inadequate quality human capital in management and governance structures. These, together with other factors, shape the nature of the current structure of FET college sector, somehow rendering the public colleges unattractive. And this distorted portrayal of FET colleges need to be corrected and you as the prime custodians, must lead us from the front. Unlike the `76 generation who operated under extremely repressive and ruthless system, you are established and protected by law and have the full backing of the ANC-led government.
Comrades, the national flag presented us with many new challenges. It dictates that we need to embrace all and provide for all. In education, the educational issues of access and massification presented were non-negotiable. This meant massive cash injection into the system, and so far, we have done well in this regard. Generally, we have consistently spent about 4.5% of our GDP on education, compared to 3.1% and 2.9% in developing countries and sub-Saharan countries respectively. However the resource inputs that government makes to education do not yield the results commensurate with the investments, including among others; delayed completion and high drop-out rates. This also has significant impact on under-employment or unemployment levels in our country.
The most concerning feature of this landscape is the steadily growing number of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 who are ‘not in education, employment or training’ (NEETS). This number currently stands at approximately 3.2 million of a total population of 6.8 million for that age group, part of which is your captive audience.
We believe though and we continue to work towards the expansion of institutions of learning and opportunities, and to build a comprehensive post-school system that provides a range of accessible alternatives for young people, and to create pathways to secured employment and improved livelihoods. This is a non-negotiable commitment on the part of government generally, and the DHET in particular.
Among the many issues that this workshop will address is one of the most important policy thrusts of my Department, namely articulation. The government’s vision is to build a single, integrated, coherent, and well-articulated post-school system in which all institutions work in such a way that they strengthen one another and in which there are no dead-ends for students who move from one segment of the post-school system into another. This is well articulated in our Green Paper on Post School Education and Training, a document which I encourage all of your to familiarise yourselves with. This and other useful documents can be accessed on our website.
Articulation
Let me briefly explain what is meant by articulation. The concept is embedded on a post-school system that provides a range of possibilities for young people to earn qualifications at various levels of the national qualifications framework (NQF). If they choose one path of study and later want to change to another or if they want to continue studying at a higher level on the same path, the knowledge and skills that they have already learnt must be recognised and they must be able to build on it. It is our intention in the Department to ensure that these options remain open to FET graduates and that there is broad cooperation across the post-school system in support of your professional and educational aspirations.
I am aware that college graduates find it very difficult to be admitted to higher certificate, diploma or degree courses in universities, including universities of technology. The Department regularly receives complaints by prospective students that universities do not recognise the National Certificate (Vocational) at all. This state of affairs is completely unacceptable, especially as the minimum NCV admission requirements into all university types in South Africa were gazetted in November 2009 with the concurrence and advice of HESA. We are working towards addressing this issue.
The Department and our partners are working hard on the integration of RPL as an essential component of the post-school education and training. Central to this project is to ensure that skills and knowledge acquired over a long period of exposure to experiential and practical skills are put to good use by an individual, institution and the labour market.
Together with yourselves, we must identify these blockages; be it curriculum or the suspected quality of instruction or prejudices or all of these, and vigilantly tackle them.
Opportunities
In his January 8 statement, President Jacob Zuma emphasized the importance of opening access to colleges particularly for students from poor and working class household. The President recently made a similar call during his visit to Tshwane South College in Mabopane on 12 February, where he made public pronouncement about government’s commitment to invest massively towards the expansion of the FET sector.
As a Department, we are looking to dramatically increase enrolments in post-school institutions. The Green Paper that I referred to earlier, projects headcount enrolments of 4 million in FET colleges and other non-university post-school institutions by 2030. This is in line with the commitment provided in the NDP.
Our FET colleges are being encouraged to build partnerships with private providers to offer certain programmes where it felt necessary. These partnerships, however, must use strengths of both the public and private educational sectors and should help to build the capacity of the public colleges. To this effect, the Department has established a Work Integrated Learning (WIL) Chief Directorate for purposes of coordination. Part of its mandate is to mobilise the employers and SETAs to create opportunities for experiential learning as may be required for students to complete their courses of study, and to expose students to the work environment. The measures we are taking are aimed at responding to the challenges of skills development in our country, and to strengthen programmes in public colleges to address youth unemployment.
The government has given a very high priority to reviving and strengthening artisan training through apprenticeships and learnerships. As you would know, on 04 February, I launched at the Ekurhuleni South FET College, a campaign for 2013 as the ‘Year of the Artisan’. Our key targets are the production firms and sector employer for the creation of opportunities for experiential learning. The success of this campaign rests on our collective effort. As the custodians of vocational education and training, we cannot look any further for leadership in changing people’s negative perception about Artisanship. We invite you to work with us in canvassing for this project. I believe that this workshop will help pave ways through which we can effectively collaborate in this campaign and others.
The Role of Student Leadership
Comrades, you know your roles and mandate too well than I, and cannot pretend to know better. But I do know that SRCs derive their mandate from the FET Colleges Act (as amended), which guarantees SRCs specific responsibilities pertaining to the general welfare of their constituencies. It serves as a voice of students, a link between students and institutional structures, government and the civil society. This however, does not obviate SRCs to engage with parties such as development agencies, employers, sports bodies, etc. I think key to success, particularly on extended responsibilities and networking lie in your strength. A successful SRC is the one which has refined tools for effective communication with student body, class representatives and other recognised structures within an institution.
I know that the FET Act of 2006 further creates opportunities for SRCs to participate on key and influential structures such as the academic boards and financial aid committees. The SRCs must be the vanguard against circumstances that threaten the congenial atmosphere of learning including matters such as co-curricula and extra-curricula activities, students health and safety, and must speak to the issues that inhibit student access to education and training.
Successes: Investments (Bursaries)
While on access Comrades, it is noteworthy to share with you some of the milestones that we have achieved in the recent past. In the FET sector, enrolments have grown enormously over the last few years – from about 350 000 in 2010 to over 650 000 last year. This has been made possible through a variety of strategies including: a concerted effort to raise popular consciousness around the possibilities provided by an FET education, through the introduction of fee-free education for poor students in FET colleges and the expansion of shorter skills courses offered in FET colleges with the assistance of the SETAs.
A turnaround strategy to improve the quality of FET college teaching and management has been developed. This includes short term interventions to stabilise some of the weaker colleges, the appointment of qualified CAs as chief financial officers in all colleges, the development of specialised qualifications for college lecturers, special interventions to strengthen student support, and so on. Colleges have been enhanced as institutions by the injection of considerable sums of money, including R 2.5bn for the current MTEF period to upgrade their infrastructure.
NSFAS funding for loans and bursaries to students in universities and colleges have expanded massively from R2.375 billion in 2008 to well over R6 billion this year. An audit of university student housing has revealed very serious deficiencies and we have started to develop a plan to tackle this. Over the next 3 years, we have set aside R1.7bn for student accommodation and universities are contributing an additional 0.6bn. Of the R2.3 billion total, R1.4 billion of which will be spent on student accommodation at HDIs where the need is greatest. Overall for university infrastructure, the Department is spending R6bn over this 3-year MTEF period, with an additional R2bn in co-funding from the universities own coffers.
In 2010, R318 million was awarded in bursaries and approximately 65 000 FET students benefited. Since January 2011, the bursary scheme has been extended to students enrolled in NATED Programmes who previously did not share in this benefit, with an allocation that reached R1.2 billion. In 2012, the allocation rose to R1.7billion to which funds in excess of R100 million was added in response to financial aid demand. This year, the Department is set to distribute approximately R2 billion in financial aid.
Technically and/or practically, the state has started to implement a policy on Fee-Free education to deserving and academically capable students. I must make it clear that this investment demands equal returns; students have to work hard and pass so that government can be able to support other deserving generation of students.
With regard to NASFAS bursaries and FET colleges, I must strongly caution against the tendency of entitlement and to perceive this as a social grant. IT IS NOT. Therefore based on the merit of each case, no student is entitled to any cash refund. I must further caution against some of the students who perpetually neglect their responsibility to attend classes, but only turn up on the day of disbursements of transport and accommodation allowances. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE.
It has also come to my attention that some college officials create ghost students as potential bursary beneficiaries so that they siphon the funding meant for the poor into their pockets. I shall work hard with your vigilant support to stamp our perverse tendencies which undermine our effort to increase access by young people to education and training opportunities.
Conclusion
Comrades, the new form struggle has just begun. As you go through your paces, keep in mind the huge task that lies ahead and think through how you want to lead us to the just society where freedom and rights are assured for the good of all, and where the economy and the large segment of our population communicate. I look forward to the output of this workshop and beyond!
I thank you. Amandla!
