Abstract:
This dissertation gives a review of progress made in the National Development Plan
(NDP) on higher education institutions in South Africa. The NDP is a blueprint that
aims to make South Africa a better, more vibrant and first class country to tackle
unemployment, poverty and inequality, with all the goals achieved by 2030. The
South African government has had plans and policies in place with the goal to
eradicate the triple threat of poverty, unemployment and inequality previously but
many of these plans have failed largely because of lack of sufficient implementation.
In order to win this battle, the NDP places education at the forefront as the tool to
realise positive results over the triple threat. This need for a breakthrough cannot be
realised without producing an educated citizenry with tertiary qualifications,
especially in the fields of engineering, mathematics, science and technology. What
this thesis shows is that there have been unintended disruptions in the early stages
of the implementation process, with tertiary student protests across the country�s
universities and colleges with regard to issues such as tuition fee decreases and free
education, and other challenges such as the political winds blowing the numbers off
of the ruling party�s grip, resulting in the loss of key metros. The latter challenge is
most likely to lead to the scrapping of the NDP, as a new party might bring with it a
set of new ideas and policies to address the challenges faced by the country at the
time. What also threatens the realisation of the NDP goals is the much anticipated
Elective Conference of the ruling party in 2017, because as history informs, the new
leadership, much like with the change of political party in power, will most likely want
to introduce a different Plan, depending on the winning slate. It was stated that since
this work can only be improved on as it was conducted during the early days of
implementation, and while some of the mentioned challenges are still getting
resolved (e.g. the Commission looking into the feasibility of free education was still in
progress when this work got completed), government needs to listen to the people
and consider increasing funding for university subsidies, in order to accommodate
the large university intakes and to keep experienced staff in these institutions and to
help realise the goals of the NDP for higher education.
