De la Rey: Key issue for universities is funding

This comes after various protests against Afrikaans as a language of instruction at the institution.

De la Rey said, in an interview with the Complimentary Breakfast's Rian van Heerden, that they are awaiting the outcome of an ongoing court case before they can look at implementing any changes to the current language policy.

"When this process started I indicated to everyone that there is a regulatory process to be followed. What that requires is that the Minister of Higher Education and Training to change the statute of the University of Pretoria."

She added that TUKS' statue specifies the language of tuition and that this needs to change before any policy changes could be looked at.

"The contestation is around the right to education in any of the official languages and we have to wait for the outcome before implementing changes," she told host, Rian van Heerden.

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De la Rey also touched on free education and said the key issue is funding for Universities because tuition fees are their main source of income.

"At the moment government is saying to us that they realise there is a need to fund universities better but they are not able to increase funding in the current economic climate," de la Rey said.

She reiterated that throughout the schooling system in South Africa there is a fee, and therefore it should it not be unreasonable to charge a fee for universities.

"We have looked at models where we look at students and classify them according a differentiated fee model, which will mean that you will have to pay according to what your family can afford."