A student at the University of Pretoria has criticised Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande for taking a decision to leave it up to universities to determine next year’s fee increases.

Reacting to the proposed increment that Nzimande announced on Monday afternoon in Pretoria‚ Reece Banks told TMG Digital that the decision taken by the minister to leave it up to tertiary institutions to determine 2017 fee increments would make matters worse.

“I think this will affect middle class people the most especially with the economy being strained. The Department of Higher Education needs to come up with a new funding model because they aren’t thinking out of the box about this decision‚” said Banks.

“I think Minister Nzimande needs to strictly regulate the fee increases instead of leaving it up to the universities to decide. Although universities know that students will be very unhappy if they do an 8% fee increase for next year’s fees‚ they need to engage with student bodies to determine which increase is acceptable‚” said Banks‚ who is a third year Industrial Engineering student at UP.

The 20-year-old student view comes as Nzimande earlier on Monday announced that it would be up to universities to decide their own fee increases for the 2017 academic year but suggested the increase not be more than eight%.

 Banks told TMG Digital that some students were gathering at the university’s auditorium.

At the briefing the minister said the government would however assist qualifying students to fund the gap between the 2015 fee and the adjusted 2017 fee at their institution.

 The government would then decide on the number of students it would sponsor along with the percentage of fees that it would pay. The students would be required to top up the rest.

Nzimande said the government was committed to finding the resources to support students from households that earned less than R600‚000 a year.

 He however could not provide details as to how this would be implemented.