POST-SCHOOL EDUCATION AND TRAINING: MISSING MIDDLE FUNDING MODEL POLICY PROCESS UNPACKED

POST-SCHOOL EDUCATION AND TRAINING: MISSING MIDDLE FUNDING MODEL POLICY PROCESS UNPACKED

• 18 January 2024
• Education & Training
• SA Legal Academy

Higher Education, Science & Innovation Minister Blade Nzimande’s 14 January 2024 announcement came at least eight years after the first steps were taken in the process of developing a funding model for tertiary education students not qualifying for National Student Financial Aid Scheme support. The Minister’s media statement on the ‘first phase’ of the model’s implementation does not mention this. It simply refers to his 24 May 2023 Department of Higher Education & Training budget vote speech – and a ministerial task team tasked with arriving at a ‘comprehensive student funding model’.

It is not clear from the statement if the ministerial team built on a report produced by its predecessor and published in November 2016. It was entitled, ‘A support and funding model for poor and “missing middle” students. ’Two months later, the department issued a media statement calling for public comments on the report’s contents – and noting a recommendation in terms of which the necessary funding would be ‘raised from government, (the) private sector, non-profit organisations, (the) skills levy, financial institutions, donors, private individuals, and retirement funds as well as social impact bonds’. At the time, ‘a mixed funding structure of grants, loans and family contributions’ was envisaged.

The January 2017 statement also referred to:

• Cabinet approval of a ‘pilot project’ to be implemented that year ‘at various universities and one technical vocational education and training college’, and
• a parallel feasibility study to be ‘performed in line with National Treasury regulations’ and to some extent informed by public comments.

On 19 June 2020, the National Assembly’s Higher Education, Science & Innovation Committee was briefed on information emerging from the pilot and the feasibility study. Among other things, a Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG) report on the meeting at which this briefing took place noted work already under way on ‘a comprehensive student financial aid model’ intended to address the needs of all students requiring financial assistance. Undertaken in liaison with National Treasury and the Department of Planning, Monitoring & Evaluation, this work included exploring ‘alternative models’ taking account not only of the 2017 report, pilot and feasibility study but also:

• the Ikusasa Student Financial Aid Programme ‘as a private bursary provider’, and
• the report of the Heher Commission of Inquiry into Higher Education and Training.

A Heher Commission report proposal for ‘an income-contingent loan model’ was apparently of particular interest, especially given:

• ‘substantial changes in the student funding environment since 2018’
• student debt
• ‘the many other demands on state funding for higher education and training’, including postgraduate funding support, and
• ‘the fiscal context’.

Please click the links below for more information:

• Minister’s 14 January 2024 announcement
• Minister’s May 2023 budget vote speech
• June 2020 PMG report
• November 2016 ministerial task team report
• January 2017 call for input on the report
• Heher Commission report

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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