Higher Education and Training Budgetary Review and Recommendations Report 2013

Meeting report

The Chairperson, Adv I Malale (ANC) was sick, so an acting Chairperson, Ms N Gina, was elected.

The Committee perused the Draft Budgetary Review and Recommendation Report of the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training dated October 2013 and made amendments.

The Acting Chairperson noted that the concern that appointments were finalised before verification of qualifications and security clearances could take place had been placed in the Recommendations.

Dr L Bosman (ANC) said that the Department could not be held responsible as the clearing house dealing with verification was the problem. However, the Committee’s content advisor pointed out that the South African Qualifications Authority was the verifying authority. It was thus agreed that it should be recommended that verification should be speeded up.

The Chairperson proposed that the  lack of progress in meeting transformation targets in general, and not only in disability, should be highlighted.

This was agreed to.

The Chairperson also proposed that the clearing of FET certificate backlogs should be highlighted as an achievement.

Dr Bosman proposed that it be moved from the Summary and moved to Achievements.

This was generally agreed to.

Mr S Makhublele (ANC) said that although the report mentioned that there was a system for Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) in place, targets were not being met.

The researcher would amend the report to reflect this.

The Committee discussed the challenge of the merging of institutions leading to some merged institutions inheriting debt. The comment was made that this debt should not remain with the originally debt-free institutions when they were unbundled. Dr Bosman proposed that the Committee should not make a recommendation on this but should monitor the situation. 

This was agreed to.

Ms D Chili (ANC), the Chairperson, Dr Bosman and Mr Makhubele noted that funds were sometimes misaligned, unclaimed and underutilised and not lacking at some institutions, particularly with infrastructure spending and with regard to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS)..

The report was adopted, provisional to the amendments being included.

Meeting adjourned