It is not often that the ANC-aligned SA Students Congress and the DA find themselves on the same page.
But they have found common ground in their demand for the axing of higher education minister Nobuhle Nkabane.
Other unlikely allies in the form of the EFF, the PA and the MKP parties have also banded together in the NCOP with the DA and on Wednesday to reject Nkabane’s R142bn higher education budget
There can be little doubt that her portfolio is in disarray. Nkabane took over from long-serving former minister Dr Blade Nzimande exactly a year ago.
He had done a poor job for a long time. Hopes were high that she would change things around, starting with transforming the disastrous National Student Financial Aid Scheme administration so that it actually did the job for which it was created.
That is ensuring the efficient and effective administration of bursaries and student loans to deserving students enrolled in higher education institutions.
Nzimande’s tenure saw constant disruptions in the distribution of NSFAS funding and ballooning student debt.
But little has changed under Nkabane’s tenure except that she now faces allegations that she has become an even bigger stumbling block to the working class accessing higher education.
She has yet to provide a coherent explanation to parliament on the appointment of ANC-connected people to the Sector Education and Training Authority boards.
She stands accused of misleading parliament in this regard, with the DA laying a criminal complaint against her.
With apparently no sense of irony, Nkabane has accused parties who rejected her budget as being anti-transformation, misogynistic and of punishing students.
The very same students are threatening to take their fight to the streets if President Cyril Ramaphosa does not remove her.
Ramaphosa has given good reason for his decision to axe trade and industry deputy minister Andrew Whitfield, who failed to seek permission from the president for an international visit.
But he needs to act with similar decisiveness when it comes to other ministers who are failing the people they are supposed to serve.
No-one, least of all students, want further damaging mass action
Things are reaching a dangerous head. The allegations of corruption in the SETA appointments, of misleading parliament, of failing to improve the NSFAS administration, of ballooning student debt, of defunded students and the failure to pay accommodation or allowances.
Students feel they have been left, quite literally, out in the cold.
The lack of support for her budget is likely to spark a further crisis.
The higher education sector in this country has been in disarray for years.
No-one, least of all students, want further damaging mass action at their institution of higher learning.
Ramaphosa needs to find someone competent, capable and honest to head up this department and to head off the trouble higher education faces.
Daily Dispatch
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