Image: Linda Nordling for Reseach Professional News
South African opposition party mostly quiet on science and technology in “targeted” manifesto
The Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s largest opposition party, has made the country’s higher education “funding environment” a focus of its 2024 elections manifesto.
The DA says its foremost priority, should it assume power following the 29 May polls, is to ensure higher education is more accessible and affordable.
Its election manifesto says it will “invest in research and innovation” to improve higher education outcomes and attract top researchers from around the world.
However, it does not identify technologies or research areas that it will target for investment—a change from 2019, when the party promised to boost research funding for areas of “excellence” and to “protect and promote” academic freedom.
NSFAS shake-up
The DA says it will reform the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) by implementing a “tiered system” for loans and grants, with a primary focus on providing substantial financial support to students from low-income households.
The proposal comes after South Africa’s student aid bill has ballooned, with the South African government spending R35 billion (US$1.9bn) more on higher education last year than it did five years earlier.
Senior members of the higher education community have criticised that increase as unaffordable, its critics including Max Price and Adam Habib, former vice-chancellors of the universities of Cape Town and Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
Loans as default
The government’s current model of funding higher education is “unsustainable”, the DA says, considering that many students “are not required to pay any of the funds back”.
NSFAS currently pays out full cost-of-study grants to students whose families earn under R350,000 per year, with loans offered for others.
DA head of policy Mat Cuthbert told Research Professional News that under the DA’s alternative funding model, students will have access to a variety of government loans, each coming with favourable repayment conditions.
The DA’s system would offer a support to students whose families earn up to R600,000 per year. These students, which include the so-called “missing middle” students whose families earn too much to qualify for NSFAS funding, but who cannot afford to pay in full to study, would be organised into tiers based on their income, and this would determine the portion of their study costs that they could access through grants or loans.
Merit-based bursaries
Outstanding students could have their loans converted into non-repayable bursaries. This will reward hard work, serving as an incentive to improve institutional graduation rates, said Cuthbert.
By making loans the default, the DA will spend less on higher education than the ANC since funding would flow back into the system as students pay back their loans, Cuthbert said.
The party would also establish debt collection systems to recover historic unpaid student fees, which is currently in the billions of rands.
‘Targeted’ approach
The DA’s relative silence on its plans for research and innovation is a contrast from its 2019 manifesto, which identified Information and Communication Technology as a priority for investment.
The 2024 manifesto fails to mention cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), ecommerce, and tech related to the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).
While not discounting the importance of these technologies, Cuthbert says the DA manifesto is not an exhaustive list of policy positions. He highlights that the DA favoured a “targeted approach” which included key interventions that are required to get South Africa back on track.
Energy focus
Renewable energy is the one technology area that receives attention. The DA identifies it as a key technology, in response to the rolling blackouts that have crippled the country since 2007.
The manifesto states that a DA government will move away from reliance on the Eskom national grid and increase the usage of renewable energy sources.
The party commits to building local manufacturing capacity for renewable energy technologies without resorting to protectionist trade practices and incentivising the training and development of skills capacity in the renewable energy sector.
Research Professional News aims to cover the science, technology and higher education promises of major political parties contesting the country’s general election in May.