The Premier, Zamani Saul, revealed in his inaugural State of the Province Address (SOPA) the province has set aside R36 million in total to ensure that deserving matriculants are able to go to university, irrespective of their backgrounds.

He went on to express much disappointment in the regression of the Northern Cape’s final matric results over the years as compared to other provinces. “Having been the best performing province in terms of Grade 12 results at some point, we have consistently regressed to be in the bottom three provinces nationally in 2018. We can hardly afford such a regression when only 27,1% of people 20 years and older have matric, while only 8,8 % have post-school qualifications. We cannot be content,” says the concerned Premier.

Provincial Secretary of the Economic Freedom Fighters, and member of the provincial legislature, Shadrack Tlhaole, praised Saul for prioritising education in his address. Tlhaole says Saul spoke about education at length, something which the EFF finds pleasing to the ears, because they want education to be “fashionable”. He says when a leader speaks about investing more into education, the EFF will support him irrespective of who he is and which party he belongs to.

The Premier also highlighted the successes of the new kid on the block, the Sol Plaatje University (SPU), which he commended for continuing to grow steadily. According to Saul, the university started off with roughly 125 students and 10 staff members in 2014. Today there are 2000 students and about 400 academic and support staff working at the Kimberley-based campus. It is predicted that by 2025, SPU will have 7500 students enrolled for study.

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