Minister tells of further education opportunities

Nzimande told the media in Pretoria that the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) will provide loans and bursaries to 205,000 to eligible first-time and continuing students at universities as well as to 200,000 students at Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges in 2016, with student loans totalling R10 billion.

Briefing the media on the department's strategy for 2016, Nzimande said that they are aware that the matriculation examinations were a very important milestone in the lives of young people.

"We would like to make them aware of approximately 517 402 opportunities available to them within the post-school system - that is in our 26 Universities, 50 TVET colleges, and various workplace-related training opportunities," he said.

Opportunities can further be broken down as follows:

- 212 472 new entrant opportunities at Universities;

- 133 551 Engineering and Business Studies opportunities at TVET colleges;

- 88 794 occupationally-directed (apprenticeship or learnership) opportunities in collaboration with TVET colleges, SETAs and employers;

- 30 750 new artisan learners to be registered; and

- 51 835 learning programme opportunities in the form of 5 087 apprenticeships, 9 073 bursaries, 20 138 learnerships, 17 537 skills and work readiness programmes supported through the SETAs.

Nzimande reiterated that government has committed an additional R6.9 billion funding to support university education in the system. 

"This is a strong indication that Government has listened to the concerns raised by university students. As an immediate measure, we have resolved the 0% fee increment for 2016 with universities, which amounted to R2.33 billion," he said. 

Students from several universities protested under the Fees Must Fall movement in 2015 to do away with university fees.

(File photo: Gallo Images)