NtandoN said:
ChefDJ@TheFanatics said:
Free education should be for primary and high schools, especially the government funded ones.
Tertiary education is a privilege, not a right. If you want it free, make sure you excel so as to earn yourself a bursary.
Your point is valid but the devil's advocate in me has to say this. It is difficult to get a job when you only have matric and the best way to increase your chances of employment is to get tertiary education - but even that does not guarantee it. If tertiary education is a privilege then it means the poor cannot be uplifted because they are not privileged enough to afford tertiary education. They will perpetually be a victim of their circumstance. Having said that, there are funding methods for low income/poor people eg. NSFAS, low income focussed bursaries & scholarships; but these methods will never be enough to fund all the poor that are eligible for tertiary education. What do we do with those that fall through the cracks? What about those that get in to university and get financially excluded in the middle of their degree?
I do not support the violence at all. I feel there is merit in the fight for free tertiary education but it cannot be expected that the country should be able to afford it now, maybe in future under a different government but not with Nkandla still fresh in our memories.
Yes, fair points, and yes the previously disadvantaged also deserve a chance at education. But at the cost of what? Disallowing those who can afford the education their privilege of going to class and completing their exams?
I'm white. Does it mean I studied easily because of rich parents who benefited from some form of imagined riches in earlier years? I am the first person in 250 years of history in my family to have studied, and I did it with a student loan from Standard Bank. I'm 26 years old and still paying off that damn loan.
Nobody of any race, colour, religion, culture or belief is entitled to free tertiary education. Yes, what if the cure to cancer is sitting in the mind of a poor youngster who cannot afford university? Unfortunately life is not fair and never will be. Make it work if you can, but not by demanding something for free which is impossible for the country to provide.
Free education was the biggest, most unruly, unfounded promise ever made by the ANC. It is an impossible feat which anybody of any sound mind should know they cannot afford to provide, yet these criminals are demanding it because they want it.