A “modest” group of 290 students will start lectures for start-up programmes at two new universities in the Northern Cape and Mpumalanga next year, President Jacob Zuma told a media briefing on Thursday.

The Sol Plaatje University, in Kimberley, and the University of Mpumalanga, in Nelspruit, were expected to provide additional capacity to South Africa’s higher education system and enable the establishment of niche academic departments that did not exist or were underrepresented in the country.

“Our target is to grow each university over a ten-year development period to accommodate 15 000 full-time equivalent students at the main campus in Nelspruit and 5 000 at the main campus in Kimberley,” said Zuma.

As construction of the infrastructure and buildings was only expected to start following the outcome of architectural design competitions for each university in October, existing infrastructure would be used for the delivery of the 2014 start-up programmes.

The interim councils of each university would appoint management and academic staff in September this year, while the first newly constructed academic buildings were expected to be completed by the 2015 academic year.

Until then, in the Northern Cape, lectures would be primarily delivered at the National Institute for Higher Education, in Kimberley, while programmes in Mpumalanga would be presented at the Siyabuswa Campus, the Mpumalanga Regional Training Hotel Academy, in Kanyamazane, and the Lowveld College of Architecture, in Nelspruit.

Zuma said that, given the “rich” heritage of Kimberley and the Northern Cape, the university would specialise in heritage studies, including interconnected academic fields such as museum management, archaeology, indigenous languages and restoration architecture.

“The University of Mpumalanga will specialise in agriculture and biodiversity, linking into food security, natural resource management, nature conservation, plant and animal sciences, forestry and wood sciences, technology and wildlife management,” the Statesman said, adding that these initial areas of specialisation would be given greater definition as the new interim councils of each university took up their duties.

Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande on Thursday added that State funds, in the form of earmarked grants and subsidies, would be the main source of funding during the universities’ ten-year development programme, but additional investment would be required.

Following the submission of feasibility studies for each university in November, National Treasury had confirmed an allocation of more than R2-billion over the 2013/14 to 2015/16 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework period.

“This funding committed to the start-up capital process is in addition to the funds set aside for the 23 universities in the country, as the full development of these institutions require significant further investment over the ten-year period,” he commented.

Total capital and operational costs are estimated at R6.6-billion for the Sol Plaatje University and R10.3-billion for the University of Mpumalanga.

GREAT STRIDES

Commenting on government interventions in education, Zuma said “great strides” had been made in improving the level and quality of education in South Africa.

Referencing the Census 2011, he noted that the proportion of children with no schooling had halved between 1996 and 2011, and that there was a “huge” increase in the enrolment of children from pre-primary level to tertiary level.

“In the last decade, we have witnessed a growth of over 50% in the number of enrolments. Numbers moved from 603 000 enrolled students in 2001 to 935 000 in 2012,” he said.

The establishment of the new universities would also go some way towards contributing to the National Development Plan goal of achieving an increase in higher education enrolments from 17.9% in 2012 to 25% by 2030.

“All successful countries prospered because they invested in education and skills development. Our young people are hungry for education and the development of these new institutions is designed to respond to this hunger,” said Zuma.