On 2015-10-24 15:48:15 Blk20 said:

@Deamonza: yes, I understand your point. Every economist will tell you our tax base is wide Enough, and our taxes are high enough already. Free tertiary education in SA is possible.

Free tertiary education will especially be possible if we decide against nuclear power generation; if corruption and wasteful spending in all 3 spheres of government can be reduced with a modest 10%.

I think you are throwing the baby out with the bath water, Given that power generation is tenuous for the most part every winter, the costs have spiralled and the emissions from our Coal and Diesel generation are astronomical. Nuclear is the cleanest, cheapest and most sustainable way forward at this point... Am I happy to have the Russians do it ? Hell no, I would prefer the French as they have the best safety records in the world.
We absolutely need this power generation capacity developed, there is no choice anymore.

All the reports you have mentioned are right, tertiary education can be fully funded by the government but only on the proviso that other conditions must be met. Conditions we all know are completely unrealistic.

They failed to account for the massive reliance on donations that all the universities need, they failed to account for the funds brought into universities from all sorts of activities, all of it used to reduce the running costs of these schools and also forwarded into the grant programs.
They also rely on certain things happening that never will... reduce corruption ? This is on the increase, and this since the promises of driving out corruption. The golden handshakes. The massive payments for negligence from the health departments and the police.

@BLK20 - I am an economist and I don't think that ts sustainable. I have not read the report but I can tell you now that any economic model is only as good as it's assumptions. Assuming corruption away is a ridiculous assumption. I also wonder how they accounted for increasing pressure in other social services?

The service delivery protests are not going to go away. The public demands free and subsidised housing, free electricity and water for indigent households, waste water infrastructure school as flush toilets in the most remote locations, learner transport, better public transport systems, roads and higher grants.....The legacy of apartheid cannot be allowed to continue but truthfully speaking it cannot be afforded right now. (Just have a look at the growth rates in the number of social grant beneficiaries versus the taxpayers).

Another economic argument against free education is that the benefits are largely private. The CA that your tax Rand will put through school is free to leave and find employment in the Caymans. The countries you have mentioned as having significant subsidies for higher education are (1) wealthy compared to SA (2) Have low unemployment which means that upon completion of their studies they are likEly to be working, and are able to start paying graduate taxes and contributing to the fiscus.

No where in terms world is higher education a right and even the Constitution does not place such an obligation on the state. Much reference has been made to the Freedom Charter, but I am certain few of its contributors were experts in sustainable development.

High 5 to the students, they have won the battle, the war will still continue ... next battle JZmustfall. The war needs to be a complete revamp of our education system from ground zero.

The current education system is inadequate, all they teach you is to become a worker bee.

1. Educate toddlers and kids to be respectful of other people and their property.
2. Educate kids responsibility and accountability.
3. Then teach them real life skills.
4. The educate them in academics and technical skills without the need for exams and tests but rather assessments
5. Then teach them how to make money and look after and grow it.

Hello dear you.



My Grandfather was a big politician, a very powerful man, Governor of the biggest province in Cuba and there-after the
President of the Republic of Cuba, temporarily prior to Fidel Castro.
Needless to say he was a full blood Capitalist that would never tilt to any form of Communism or any system that would be considering equality as one of the most important values in society.
Never mind giving anything for free.

But my mother and father and others members in my family were pro to a SOCIALIST welfare system as the type established in Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Ireland those days.
Although my parents were a man and woman of science (bio- molecular genetics) they were first Global Economist graduates.

So I grew up in a state of affairs where politics and economics and long never ending 'PASSIONATE DISCUSSIONS and debates' about what systems were better took a stand at the dinner table quite often.
These thematics were the centrepiece in their lives.

Along the years I formed my own opinion and I tried to filter my genuine own ideas from those that were indoctrinated to me from both sides (or so I think)

My Grand-mama was almost a GENIUS, and by genius I mean genius.
We use to joke about and question if the discovery now a fact that the Galeic-Celtic DNA shows that this people have more complex origins than the rest of us and even Y chromosome non existent in any other human could account for my grandma's brilliance....
but she barely made it to finish primary education because of the horrific financial situation the family was going through.
An incredible brain was wasted to this world because of that.

I was, though, an average student, and by average I mean just that, 'AVERAGE'.
BUT I had the INMENSE PRIVILEGE to have grown up in a country where all education since your first day at nursery school until you get your Master degrees is absolutely FREE.
No collateral cost of any sort.
From a pencil and uniforms to books and even daily meals for those that had extended hours in school or campus.
If you have the marks required for an university career then is your right to do so!
The medical and many others systems were completely free as well.
Whether you needed a new heart, hip replacement or paracetamol for your headaches... All free.

And it WAS NOT just any
medical or any education but one of the best this world have to offer...
I am talking here about systems that can only compare or surpass the world's high-income, developed countries.
I am talking about *world medical and education power*,
which meant socio-economic development, scientific achievement and a model system that has global influence.

SO I AM ALL FOR EDUCATION FREE FOR EVERYONE regardless financial background ...!!!!
And housing and medical and everything that I consider a human right and not a luxury should be for free in my books of life.

BUT..

I WILL NEVER SUPPORT VIOLENCE, BRUTALITY, SAVAGE and PRIMITIVE behaviour or any form of DESTRUCCTION of LIFE or PROPERTY as a medium to obtain anything we want and deserve in this life or as a medium to make others to listen!!!!!!!

In the past this might have proved to be the solution that supported a more primitive way of existence but in the actual days we should remind ourselves that WHAT we humans are today comes from millions of years of up-grading and evolving to a better developed beings.
It doesn't really matter whether you believe to be a product of an intelligent designer, a master programmer, a creative force, a God, few Gods or an accident of nature where cells evolved randomly and arbitrary to this state of high intelligent organised matter and consciousness you call human today... NO ONE CAN DENY that the development and evolution of human beings has occurred in jumping leaps exponentially and not in steady pace arithmetically form as it is:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5......

But in stead happens:

1, 2, 4, 16, 256, 65536...

We were for millenniums moving on horses...and after thousands and thousands of years of doing that, WE WENT JUST IN LESS THAN ONE CENTURY FROM THE HORSE TO THE MOON.
In less than 80 years we jumped off that horse to fast cars, airplanes, computers, holographic virtual reality and space machines...
A majestic display that our collective and individual consciousness has taken a HUGE LEAP in quality and evolution in the form of superior mind, reasoning capacity!
We better start to showing for it!

So the methods to conquer and acquire the things in this world that we want, need or fairly deserve should display a less primitive and animalistic ways and more civility and intelligence.

After all if you take a look at the changes brought about by groups of people or even communities and nations that have done it in intelligent pacific manner by reasoning and negotiating with civility and not by burning and destroying and by using brutal force and using all the muscles but the one that count the most (brain) we most agree that those changes have been more permanent, flawless and at no cost.

In my opinion this whole way the students went around demanding their rights and that we are supporting have brought about only a HORRIBLE SILENT message that bares horrible consequences:

USE VIOLENCE and DESTRUCTION at all cost to get what you want!!

And if you are not listened then GO MORE VIOLENT YET.!!!
At times the line between anger, destroying, burning and killing is way thin.

A NO NO NO to me.


All my love
Valentina Dibella.

I say the WGs fees must fall

Free Education won't work in South Africa.
There is already a culture of non payment and entitlement.

Wow, Valentina
There are few women of your intellect, judging from your posts. I wish there were more like you in this department as an intelligent woman is a real turn on to me. I was fortunate enough to date someone of that caliber, many years ago, and she was dynamite in bed to boot. But I digress...
Strong words on education, and I share your sentiment on this wholeheartedly. Unfortunately it can't be for free, due to the low taxbase in SA. Having said that, if all the financial wastage (corruption, misspending etc) were to be elimininated, it could be a whole lot cheaper. That's another discussion.
Were I live they had the harebrained idea of putting cycle lanes everywhere, so students can get to the various university campuses by bicycle. Great idea, bad design, no one, student or otherwise, is using those lanes, except to park on, millions and millions wasted. Putting the cart before the horse.
But that is an aside, a perfect example of wastage.

In an ideal world I agree with Valentina, education and medical is a basic human right and should be free!

But then again so is food, water and shelter a basic human right and so on and so on ...

Can we change our system to accommodate free education, yes of course we can, there are a myriad of ideas that would probably work. Will they work in our beautiful country, I am not so sure.

When 3.3 million people pay taxes in a population of 51 million, while corruption is rife in government at all levels and tenders are awarded to a privilege few, where crime is so rampant that the private sector "policing" is larger than our police force.

But I have faith and I hope the students get it right, without burning down their own libraries!

In some ways I agree with Miss Valentina, in an ideal world education should be free... in countries where the taxable income is sufficiently equalized and there is a tax base to support it then it should be made as available as possible to those who qualify... and that's the crux, those who qualify.

In SA, we have seen the students demand more and more access, and this is fine... except they are not demanding it to be based on merit... but a statistical racial target that is never going be achieved unless they appeal to the lowest common denominator.

This the whole #FeesMustFall issue was a political lie from the get-go, every time the SRC's have gotten close to their publicly stated goals they have move the posts...

Have you seen the demands now made by the PYA ?

I am so glad I cannot be taxed, I am happy to give 50% of bugger all to fund these destructive kids who have no concept of the real world.
I come from a proper blue collar family who lived in public housing and didn't even have a car until my dads work gave him a company one. All my friends went to UNISA while working full time to get to their goals., I went to the SANDF for my education.. so why is this not an option for these kids ? Why do they get to demand to go to University when they haven't earned it.

There is a big gap between Matric and 1st year university, even in my day.
How do these students cope?

Pray enlighten me, is the low standard of education the reason for 5, 6 and even 8 distinctions obtained by some Matric students?