Pretoria - While progress has been made at most tertiary institutions, Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande says he remains concerned about events at the Tshwane University of Technology and the University of SA.
“There is a lot of progress. Virtually all our universities are hard at work with their academic programmes at the moment, but of course I am concerned about the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT). Because of disturbances, they have had to close the two campuses in Soshanguve and ask students to leave,” said Minister Nzimande.
The Minister addressed the Economic Sectors, Employment and Infrastructure Development cluster briefing on Tuesday.
On Monday, TUT closed two campuses in Soshanguve as a group of people continued to disrupt activities there. The university has urged students to vacate the residences. The campus is expected to reopen on 5 April 2016.
Minister Nzimande said government is in talks with management.
“We are in engagement with management there and other stakeholders... (At the end) of the month, most of our universities will be at the halfway mark for the first semester.
“We are really trying our best to make sure that even those institutions are actually back to being functional, but we welcome the progress that has been made thus far,” said Minister Nzimande.
Meanwhile, Unisa has obtained a second court interdict following protests at the university. The interdict was granted by the Gauteng Division of the High Court.
The cluster briefing noted Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s announcement that an additional R16.2 billion has been allocated for higher education over the next three years.
A total of R5.7 billion of this allocation addresses the shortfall caused by keeping fees for the 2016 academic year at 2015 levels, and the carry-through costs over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) period.
R2.5 billion goes to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) to clear outstanding student debt and R8 billion over the medium term to enable current students to complete their studies.
The main challenge, said the cluster, is the “missing middle”.
“These are students who are above the NSFAS threshold, but for whom university education is unaffordable. A process is underway to develop a new funding model to provide loans for this category of students,” it said.
The National Skills Fund has allocated R800 million towards funding undergraduate and postgraduate bursaries in scarce and critical skills through NSFAS, while R245 million is allocated to the National Research Foundation (NRF) in the 2016 academic year.
This funding is directed at over 13 500 undergraduate and over 1 200 postgraduate students.
National minimum wage
The cluster said stakeholders are exploring ways of reducing pay differentials while maximising job creation efforts in the path to introduce a national minimum wage.
Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant said there are two main issues that are still being debated by the task teams involved.
“There are two critical issues that are still being debated by the task teams, particularly the Wage Inequality Task Team. The issue is the level at which the minimum wage is set.
“There is a request by business that organised labour and communities must indicate whether or not there are going to be exclusions or exemptions. Immediately when they agree on those issues, we’ll be able to say how we are going to go forward,” she said.
Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa last week said in Parliament that a significant announcement relating to deliberations on the national minimum wage will be made in the coming months. – SAnews.gov.za
