Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba will reveal how South Africa will afford free higher education for the poor when he delivers his budget speech on Wednesday.
Former President Jacob Zuma made the announcement on proposed free higher education in December 2017.
This has created confusion at institutions of higher learning, which say they were not consulted before the announcement was made.
Economist Azar Jammine says the emphasis is to phase in free education for only first year students.
“The cost thereof will be far lighter than providing general free tertiary education – which was the intimation in Zuma’s original announcement… and this coincides with Ramaphosa’s suggestion a few weeks ago that the funding for free tertiary education is going to be phased in rather than introduced immediately. Yes, it will cost a few billion rand, but not to the terrifying extent that a general that free education for tertiary students would have had,” adds Jammine.
Watch 2018 to see free higher education implemented…
