Date: 25/03/2010
Source: African Christian Democratic Party
Title: ACDP: Dudley: Speech by ACDP Member of Parliament in the debate on the Higher Education and Training budget vote, Parliament

"The ACDP commends efforts to expand and improve capacity at FET colleges and welcomes the R12 billion over the next three years plus the further R1.3 billion allocated to improve the salaries of FET college educators. While targets to expand the number of young people studying vocational subjects are ambitious the ACDP believes they are necessary. We also concur with the usefulness of shifting the budget from provinces to the national department at this time.

‘Investing in youth to ensure a skilled capable workforce to support growth and job creation in South Africa' - a key strategic priority for the department - will very definitely require a National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) with the capacity and funds to deliver increased access to institutions of Higher learning. NSFAS has been allocated a total of R1.9 billion for this financial year. Of course we have not forgotten the R40 million unspent funds discovered in 2009 by the Portfolio Committee which helped inspire the recent review and report on the scheme, now released for public comment.

The ACDP has over the past two years repeatedly highlighted the need to broaden the criteria for which students could qualify for a loan. Our proposal has been that loans should not only be available to certain categories of people, but to any student that is willing to work hard and produce what is required. We therefore support the recommendation in the report -to increase the income level for those who qualify and allow for both complete support for poor students and partial support for other categories - as a step in the right direction.

We also note the recent DA support for a voucher system which has been ACDP policy since as far back as 1994.

Many sectors, both public and private are facing skills shortages but the public sector crisis directly undermines the ability of government to provide services including health and emergency services, education, social services, electricity, infrastructure in general and much more. The President and the Finance Minister once again identified skills development as a vehicle to economic growth and R163.3 billion has been allocated for this financial year.

The ACDP is seriously concerned that this new department is chronically underfunded, making the task before us excruciatingly difficult."