The content on this page is not written by Polity.org.za, but is supplied by third parties. This content does not constitute news reporting by Polity.org.za.

Higher Education & Training Minister Blade Nzimande must explain how he intends to finance and administer the expansion of further education and training (FET) colleges.

He has repeatedly made the promise that he intends to grow student enrolment from the current 125,000 full-time students to reach 1 million in five years or so.

However, I made the point during the higher education budget debate that there is not enough money to finance the expansion of the FET colleges. A distinguished group of education economists helped the Democratic Alliance to scrutinize every aspect of Nzimande's budget and came to same conclusion.

Nzimande agreed in Parliament with my critique, which was refreshing. Looking at the numbers one can see why he had to agree, for he has come short on expectations. This is why: Nzimande managed to squeeze a 20% year-on-year increase and then some further amounts, amounting to R3.891 billion for FET colleges for 2010/11. But projected increases are of the order of 5% per annum, too low by far.

Making some assumptions about unit costs, we developed two scenarios. The high-road model will cost R28 billion by 2013/14 and a low-road one R14 billion (the MTEF projection is R4.5 billion). We are therefore some R23,7 billion short on the generous model and R9,5 billion on the miserly one to get enrolment to 1 million full-time students by 2014.

It is no wonder then that there is no year-by-year practical student recruitment, placement, teaching and infrastructure plan in existence to meet the challenge. There is also the real concern that many of the students will simply not be suitably prepared to enter the colleges on scale. Furthermore, there is also the concern that many simply would not succeed with all the money in the world.

I challenge Minister Nzimande to publicly lower expectations regarding the growth of the FET Colleges. The role of promises in human affairs is to build trust by keeping them. I challenge him again to be truthful to the public and especially our young people: Nzimande's budget will simply not work and he must admit this.