I am for free tertiary education done responsibly

I have noticed the way Jacob Zuma operates is very much like Robert Mugabe. He operates unilaterally; he surrounds himself with incompetent ministers and fires competent ministers. Like Mugabe, Zuma seems to think that a country can never go bankrupt. Zuma’s unilateral actions in announcing free higher education is meant to help his favoured faction without regard to the economy. After the court judgements of last week, I do not think Zuma still has the moral authority to continue ringing these far-reaching changes that will surely affect the economy. For the record as a person who came from a poor working class family, I support free funded government tertiary education done in a responsible way. I started primary school education a few years after Zimbabwe’s independence. My father before his death in 1990 was a police constable and my mother was not working. I went to township schools that were fully funded by the government and I have written in my blog how we used to pay only $6 Zimbabwean dollars per year as school fees up to grade 7. For secondary education, I also went to township schools and they were very cheap. I only went to a former group A or a previously whites only school during the days of segregation (equivalence of a model C school) for the two years of A’Level as the township schools in my town only went up to O’level at that time.

After A’Level the government was fully funding university education and students were getting generous grants from the government as well. For those who did not go to university there were fully funded teachers’ colleges, polytechnic colleges, nursing training, apprenticeship, training as a radiographer etc. One could also join private sector or the civil service and get in house training. I then joined a South African owned Insurance company and I got trained internally and the company also paid for my foreign based insurance studies. After the collapse of the Zimbabwean economy starting with the fall of the Zimbabwean dollar in 1997, now university education is no longer free and university standards have fallen sharply. Top government ministers started sending their children to overseas universities to countries such as Australia, United Kingdom and United States. Now parents who can afford it now sends their children to South Africa as Zimbabwean universities standards have fallen and at the same time many university lecturers also left Zimbabwe due to the poor living standards in the country. Zimbabwe university degrees are no longer highly regarded. I am sure many people have read how Grace Mugabe got her doctorate in a record time of only a few months at the once prestigious University of Zimbabwe. I personally know someone who is working in South Africa who came to this country already with a Zimbabwean accounting degree and he is currently again studying for an accounting degree with a South African university just to get ahead in his career. With unemployment level of 95% in Zimbabwe, I advise my close family members to rather pursue their degrees in South Africa for better employment prospects. Two years ago a cousin of mine was complaining that her daughter was pursuing a degree at a Zimbabwe university of which there was virtually no industry for it in Zimbabwe and she could not get attachment in order to complete her degree.

Fully funded tertiary education is very important towards bridging the racial divide gap in South Africa especially as it allows the majority of the black citizens to acquire the necessary skills and also join the middle class. In Zimbabwe after independence a lot of black citizens managed to get training to become teachers, nurses, artisans, managers, lawyers, doctors, radiographers, economists etc. That is why it was far much easier for skilled Zimbabweans to settle in United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia etc. when the economy collapsed in Zimbabwe as they had the necessary skills thanks to the educational policies of the government. Whilst the government is pursuing that noble goal of skilling its people, it must still manage the country’s fiscus in a prudent manner so that those newly skilled black professionals join a growing economy. South African economy is not growing largely as a result of the way that Zuma has managed this country and there is looming downgrades, devaluation of the currency, high unemployment etc. I am very fearful of the reaction of the markets when they open on Monday. We can’t afford the continuous devaluation in the Rand. As we speak we are paying record petrol prices even though the oil price is nowhere nearer the $150 per barrel experienced on the world market a few years ago.

As a parent whose son will be going to university in about 3 years, I am also now looking for overseas university education or private university education locally. I had a front row seat in Zimbabwe when the decay started to manifest itself. South Africa seems to be going that way and I am very worried about what the future holds and the end result will be the same it’s a question of different cast but with the same script and it will certainly produce the same result.