Asmal's nail in 'taal' coffin

2003-11-17 22:44

Alet Rademeyer

Pretoria - The new subsidy formula for higher education facilities appears to be the final nail in the coffin for institutions offering Afrikaans in a dual- or parallel-medium environment, say experts.

According to these experts, the department of education's proposed formula, which is expected to be unveiled soon, could hit historically Afrikaans higher education facilities the hardest.

The administration of a multilingual policy at universities will be extremely difficult to maintain if subsidies are cut further, Beeld newspaper was told on Monday.

This is a complete contradiction to what Education Minister Kader Asmal said when he announced the language policy for higher education.

The new formula apparently makes no provision for institutions to offer additional resources to encourage students to learn other languages.

Could take years getting used to new formula

Asmal is expected to announce the new subsidy framework later this week.

According to sources, the new formula will hinge on the number of students applying to individual institutions, the number of graduates and the research categories that are offered.

One expert at a higher education centre - which is earmarked to get millions less in subsidies - said it could take institutions up to three years to get used to the new formula.

He said these facilities would have to think of innovative ways to cut costs.

Possible solutions would be to increase student fees, the scaling down of language departments as well as staff cuts.

Piyushi Kotecha, executive head of the South African universities' vice-chancellors association, said the higher-education sector was waiting for the announcement of the formula, but that it was not yet clear what effect it would have on these institutions.

- Beeld