Nzimande: Securing extra NSFAS funding ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’

The minister briefed the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education, Science and Technology in Parliament amid the ongoing protests by students on Wednesday morning. 

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Nzimande revealed to the committee that NSFAS' shortfall for university students for this academic year stands over R5 billion. 

This while the shortfall at Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges amount is just under R1 billion.  

Nzimande said his department had to reprioritise the funds.

"We are gonna be taking R2.49 billion from very important grants that we give to the universities. We then also are taking R500 million, half a billion Rands from TVET infrastructure, which was mainly meant to build news residents for TVET colleges.  

"R100 million, is no big deal, it is money we saved from goods & services because of the lockdown - it is okay we didn't spend this money. 

"Then we have taken R 3.3 billion from National Skills Fund (NSF)." 

Nzimande said while this was his department's way of being innovative, it comes at a cost for the over 4 million unemployed youth in the country who also need skills development and training.  

"In many ways, we are robbing Peter to pay Paul, I want to be honest with that because the country has a challenge. 

"We do need university students, we do need to increase Africans and women university graduates in the country, we are still way below where we want to achieve.  

"So I'm personally a firm champion and believer that we must increase support for university students, but at the same time, we must not lose sight of the fact that they constitute less than 5% of the university students of the total youth of our country. 

"We have a huge youth of about 3.5 to 4 million of young people who are not in employment and training, which the NSF in the main is targeting," said Nzimande.