Investigating the Funding of Teacher Education and Teacher Employment Prospects in the Face of National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) and Fundza Lushaka Bursary Scheme in South Africa

The funding of education in South Africa, particularly post-secondary education, has proved to be a difficult and highly contentious issue. The funding challenges in this sphere sit high in the agendas of organizations such as Section 27 (though one of its priority areas is basic education), and at the very extreme and radical end, the 'fees must fall campaign.' These organizations emerged through the provisions of section 29 of the Constitution of South Africa, section 29 1(b), which obliges the state to provide further education through reasonable measures and make the same progressively available and accessible. This paper argues for clarity on the binary funding models, specifically for teacher education and the concomitant discrimination that emerges when those who were funded through the Fundza Lushaka bursary scheme are preferred for employment while their NSFAS counterparts are not. The central argument is that both models source their funds from the national treasury, but one is more preferred than the other. Secondly, a question arises as to why we have two funding models for the same purpose instead of channelling the funds through one model and ensuring that, in the end, all the beneficiaries stand the same chances of employment. This paper, therefore, hypothesizes that the government deliberately discriminates against some of the recipients of educational support, given that the two models have different qualification criteria for funding.