Student representative councils across South Africa voiced their concerns on issues relating to transformation in higher education during the recent Higher Education Transformation Summit held at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli Convention Centre.

South African Student Congress (SASCO) Chairperson Ntuthuko Makhombothi said, “Government must intervene in transformation of university and councils of university are not serving their responsibility as they increase fees at universities and that is a master plan in penalising the children of the working class from higher education institutions,” Makhombothi said.

Ndiyakholwa Ngqulu from the Pan African Student Movement of Azana (PASMA) said, “The solution to free and quality education is that the South African Department of Education sets a task committee that will benchmark how countries like Botswana, Russia, etc, have obtained free education and sustained free education with resources that they have,” Ngqulu said.

After hearing the SRC leaders, Minister of Higher Education and Training, Dr Blade Nzimande, said, “We are agreeing with most of the things that you putting forward. There is an absolute commitment from all sides to reach a consensus that there must be no victimisation and there must be no criminalisation. I cannot defend someone who was destroying and thrashing university’s property. On the issue of NSFAS, we are equally concerned that we do not have enough money and resources to help our students but we are trying. We are not sitting folding our arms. We are looking at all sort of possibilities as to where can we get extra resources so that not a single academically capable student must be denied access to higher education,” said Dr Nzimande.

– Mxolisi Ntanzi and Sihle Ndebele

Pictured: Students at the transformation Summit