'It's time for students to come to the party', writes Blade Nzimande

On Monday, I announced that the government would subsidise poor, working and middle class university and college students, by providing the funding to cover the fee adjustments at their institutions in 2017.

This will see all university and college students from families with a household income of up to R600000 per annum being supported by the government with subsidy funding to cover the gap between the 2015 fee and the adjusted 2017 fee at their institutions, for increments up to 8%.

This is very good news that will bring huge relief to nurses, teachers, police, social workers and other parents who work in occupations that do not pay massive salaries, and who have children at university and vocational colleges.

In that light, it is baffling why a minority of people would want to cause anarchy at our universities at a time that the government is accelerating its progressive implementation of free higher education for the poor.

This is more so when one takes into account the fact that the government's decision this week took into consideration recommendations from the interim report of the Council on Higher Education (CHE) on 2017 university fees, as well as all the inputs that had been made during my extensive consultations with stakeholders, including student leaders, university councils and community leaders, over the past few months.

To restate government's position in the interests of clarity, we recognise the legitimate concerns of students around the affordability of higher education and the need to ensure that students should not be denied access to higher education on the basis of financial need.

While institutional autonomy means that the final decision on fees lies with individual university councils, the government felt it was necessary for it to assist by providing leadership on the matter in a manner which sought to balance the range of competing interests within the overall national budget framework, while ensuring the long-term viability of the South African university sector.

It must also be appreciated that fees for students from poor backgrounds are covered by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, known as NSFAS.

And together with the Department of Higher Education and Training, universities also continue to mobilise institutional and private sector financial support for students not covered by NSFAS, specifically those students whose family incomes are above the NSFAS threshold, but who cannot afford fees on their own.

In addition, a new loan model for these students will be tested in 2017 before full implementation in the coming years.

In the meantime, fees remain a significant part of the financing model for higher education and training, and it is also only right that those who can afford to pay for a university education continue to do so.

It is indeed very difficult to understand why young South Africans whose parents can afford to send them to private schools are not willing to pay a realistic increase in their university education fees, particularly when, in the real world of national fiscal limitations, subsidising their fees further would mean taking money away from other essential services such as housing and health, while also cutting the numbers of poorer students in higher education who rely on state support.

The government is playing its part, and it is time for other stakeholders, including students, to come to the party.

lNzimande is the minister of higher education and training; he is also the general secretary of the South African Communist Party