Wits students protest over tuition fee increase

Sinbad said:
This is a false statement and thus invalidates the premise of the entire piece.
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Not according to this

http://constitutionallyspeaking.co....use-of-lack-of-funds-may-be-unconstitutional/

As the Constitutional Court pointed out in Governing Body of the Juma Musjid Primary School & Others section 29(1)(b) does contain an internal limitation requiring that the right to further education be “progressively realised” by the state who has to take reasonable measures to make higher education both more available and more accessible.
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The state has not done enough to address the problems in our education system.

The Constitution commands that we (but especially the state) address the deeply entrenched patterns of privilege and disadvantage (much of it still based on race) and that we (especially the state) dismantle the system that continues to skew access to opportunities in our society. In the field of education this requires a complete rethink on the funding model of both primary and tertiary education. Maybe the student protests about fee increases at Universities will finally force policy makers and policy implementers to address the structural inequality that is being perpetuated by the current funding model for education.
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OrbitalDawn said:
I'm not comfortable with acquiescing to the idea that public universities throughout the country becoming inaccessible to the vast majority of the populace is inevitable. I think young people should have the option of being full-time students at these institutions.

Many fields of study aren't offered at Unisa, and most are not of the same quality and international credibility.
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The full time universities are already at or close to full capacity, so free education will solve nothing to increase numbers. We either need more universities, or improve a place like Unisa were you can reach the most students. Maybe make Unisa a quasi-full time Uni, where you have access to after hour classes for example. And give them funds to allow them to provide the degrees that you currently cant do at Unisa (law, medicine, engineering etc). These days education is becoming more and more electronic with more focus on self study, so a correspondence type education mixed with contact sessions can work for these type qualifications. If you want cheaper education available to more people, lowering fees at UCT or Wits wont help because you can only cater for as many students. Building more classrooms takes time and money. Rather focus taking education to the people via distance learning + contact sessions than having a central campus thatis already cramped.
 
Sinbad said:
Please note that there is a fundamental difference between "further" education (enshrined in the bill of rights) and "higher" education (NOT in the bill of rights)
I invite you to google it.
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Fair point but the state still has an obligation to make higher education more accessible which it is not doing.

South Africa’s funding of higher education, even though significant, does not compare favourably to other countries. In 2011, the state budget for universities as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) was 0.75% compared to 0.78% for Africa as a whole, and 1.21% for the Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development (OECD) countries. Given the important role of higher education in the production of skills, research and innovation, in the mitigation of socio-economic inequalities, and in the realisation of the state’s development agenda, the level of funding needs to improve. However, for additional funding to have any meaningful impact, it is necessary to address the inefficiencies in the system.
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Gnarls said:
Fair point but the state still has an obligation to make higher education more accessible which it is not doing.
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No it doesn't.

It would be clever for the state to do it but it is not obliged to do it by any fundamental rule in our country.
 
OrbitalDawn said:
I'm not comfortable with acquiescing to the idea that public universities throughout the country becoming inaccessible to the vast majority of the populace is inevitable. I think young people should have the option of being full-time students at these institutions.

Many fields of study aren't offered at Unisa, and most are not of the same quality and international credibility.
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Unisa is probably the most powerful tool to address the long term inequality in this country. If I were running the show in this country, I would set a goal for Unisa to become the best place in South Africa to get your tertiary education.
 
Sinbad said:
No it doesn't.

It would be clever for the state to do it but it is not obliged to do it by any fundamental rule in our country.
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Yes, but that is what my original post along with Pierre de Vos' piece were alluding to. That an argument could be made? Again, from the same article

Where a University treats all students the same and assumes that all students have exactly the same means to pay for their education, it would in effect be discriminating indirectly against students who are not able to fund their education. Given the legacy of apartheid and because of the structural racism that still pervades our society, poorer students are still disproportionately black. A funding model that fails to take adequate account of this reality will make it more difficult for a poorer (disproportionately black) subgroup of student to gain access to a University. Such a policy may be discriminatory and may well infringe on section 9(3) of the Bill of Rights.

A court will ask what is fair in the circumstances, taking account of whether the student belongs to a group who has suffered from unfair discrimination in the past (or continues to suffer from such discrimination), and also taking account of the purpose of the discriminatory rule. It will then ask whether the rule has the effect of treating some students as not having equal moral worth because of their race, gender, sexual orientation or social origin. Clearly a rule that has the effect of excluding many deserving students (who will be overwhelmingly black and poor) from University studies while not having any big impact on more affluent students (many of whom will be white) will have such an effect.

It could therefore be argued that any system that has the effect of indirectly excluding some students because of their race, gender, sexual orientation or social origin will constitute unfair discrimination in conflict with section 9(3) and will be unconstitutional.

The Constitution thus places a duty on the state (who largely funds Universities) and University managements, to ensure that no student who otherwise would have been granted access to University is excluded because of his or her lack of funds. While Universities are allowed to make certain rules to regulate access to University, I would argue such rules would be found to discriminate unfairly if they are purely based on whether the prospective student has the funds to pay for his or her education.
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Stefanmuller said:
The full time universities are already at or close to full capacity, so free education will solve nothing to increase numbers. We either need more universities, or improve a place like Unisa were you can reach the most students. Maybe make Unisa a quasi-full time Uni, where you have access to after hour classes for example. And give them funds to allow them to provide the degrees that you currently cant do at Unisa (law, medicine, engineering etc). These days education is becoming more and more electronic with more focus on self study, so a correspondence type education mixed with contact sessions can work for these type qualifications. If you want cheaper education available to more people, lowering fees at UCT or Wits wont help because you can only cater for as many students. Building more classrooms takes time and money. Rather focus taking education to the people via distance learning + contact sessions than having a central campus thatis already cramped.
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From what I understand a large part of the problem now is that students who are well on their way to completing their qualifications simply can't afford the costs anymore, and many drop out as a result. This wastes everyone's time, as the person took a spot at the university, but couldn't finish. Making the institutions more financially accessible will help alleviate that problem.

It's something I saw so much of when I was at university. Students who were so stressed about their financial situation that they also struggled to focus on their coursework. It's just unnecessary.

Naturally I fully agree that a beefed up Unisa will be a good thing, but I just don't see them fulfilling the same role as the other universities currently do.
 
Yeah, correspondence can't replace face-to-face teaching in its efficacy.
 
Students have rejected the 6 % proposal and university management cannot even speak to them as they are at the Union Buildings today.

Will lectures resume on Monday?
 
Humberto said:
Students have rejected the 6 % proposal and university management cannot even speak to them as they are at the Union Buildings today.

Will lectures resume on Monday?
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Humberto, you still alive? :)

The answer is: no one knows
 
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