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Study shows students shop more and save less Dr Koloba
Dr Habofanwe Koloba, senior lecturer at the University of the Free State’s Department of Business proposes financial literacy as the solution to student debt and lack of saving predicament.
Did you know that failing to service store or credit card debt may jeopardise the growth of South Africa’s economy? Outstanding payments might seem inconsequential but they may adversely affect the country’s credit rating. Dr Habofanwe Koloba, senior lecturer at the University of the Free State’s Department of Business Management recently published an article titled: “Access to credit and saving behaviour of generation Y students: Are we educating an over-indebted generation,” in the Journal of Economics and Finance Studies which speaks of this phenomenon. 

From analysing the financial behaviour of a group of 145 millennials and literature, Dr Koloba hypothesised that easy access to store and credit cards by Generation Y students had influenced their poor saving habits. “There is a statistically significant relationship between store or credit card usage and lack of savings among Generation Y students,” he writes.

Salvaging the situation
Dr Koloba advocates for the integration of financial literacy within the curriculum in addition to parents playing an active role in instilling financial intelligence in their children from a young age. He also asserts that financial institutions need to offer products that encourage saving among students rather than luring them to indebtedness.

The benefits of saving 
Savings are channelled into dividend-producing investments which fuel the eradication of poverty, inequality and unemployment as well as provide capital for infrastructure development. Needless to say, a consumerist society with a poor saving culture does not promise to attain these successes.

News Archive

UFS first to mechanise agricultural technique
2006-05-09

    

Small farmers from Thaba `Nchu were the biggest group attending the farmers day at the UFS Paradys experimental farm.  From the left are Mr David Motlhale (a small farmer from Thaba 'Nchu), Prof Leon van Rensburg (lecturer at the UFS Department of Soil, Crop and Climate Sciences and project leader), Mr Nhlonipho Nhlabatsi (Agricultural Research Council, Glen), Ms Meisie Mthethwa (small farmer from Bloemspruit).  In front is Mr Patrick Molatodi (chairperson of the Tswelopele Small Farmer Association).
 

 

Some of the participants of the farmers day at the UFS Paradys experimental farm were from the left Prof Leon van Rensburg (lecturer at the UFS Department of Soil, Crop and Climate Sciences and project leader, Mr Patrick Molatodi (chairperson of the Tswelopele Small Farmers Association) and Prof Herman van Schalkwyk (Dean: UFS Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences).

UFS first tertiary institution in world to mechanise agricultural technique
The University of the Free State (UFS) is the first tertiary institution in the world to mechanise the in-field rain water harvesting technique on a commercial scale.

The technique was recently demonstrated to about 100 small farmers at the UFS Paradys experimental farm outside Bloemfontein. 

“With this technique rain water is channeled to the plant and in this way food security is increased.  The advantage of the technique for commercial farmers lies in the reduced cultivation of land.  Small farmers will benefit from this because they can now move out into the fields and away from farming in their back yards,” says Prof Leon van Rensburg, lecturer at the UFS Department of Soil, Crop and Climate Sciences and project leader.    

Rain water harvesting is an antique concept that was used by communities before the birth of Christ.  In South Africa the technique is mainly used in the plots of small farmers where they make surface structures by hand. 

"The technique is also used for the first time by the UFS on commercial scale by means of the cultivation of a summer crop on 100 ha at the Paradys experimental farm,” says Prof Leon van Rensburg,

Of the farmers who attended the farmers day most represented about 42 rural communities in the vicinity of Thaba ‘Nchu.  A group of seven from KwaZulu-Natal also attended the proceedings.  These small farmers can for example apply this technique successfully on the 250-300 ha communal land that is available in the Thaba ‘Nchu area. 

The project is funded by the UFS and the National Research Foundation (NRF) and the farmers’ day was funded by the Water Research Commission.   

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel:   (051) 401-2584
Cell:  083 645 2454
E-mail:  loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
9 May 2006

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