b) National Institute for Higher Education (NIHE) . It emerged that there was low morale among staff at NIHE in relation to the envisaged university in Kimberley. Employees at the Institute were concerned with their job security since the future of NIHE was not clearly articulated. High staff turnover remained a serious concern for the Institute. . The Committee was extremely concerned that staff members at NIHE were not kept abreast with the developments of the proposed university by the Department. . It emerged that there was no internal audit unit at the Institute owing to lack of capacity and consultants were utilised for this function. . Shortage of qualified lecturing staff contributed to high failure rate in subjects such as Accounting and Maths. Students were not provided with adequate academic support although they paid similar tuition fees with their counterparts at the partner institutions. . It emerged that partner institutions demanded funds of application fees from students although they did not contribute subsidies to NIHE. Contractual agreements with partner institutions were not beneficial to NIHE and partner institutes did not oblige to contractual agreements at certain times. . The R28 million funding from the Department for 2013/14 was inadequate as the estimated operational and personnel cost were R37 million leaving a shortfall of R9 million. . It emerged that Funza Lushaka students majoring in Afrikaans did not qualify for the bursary since Afrikaans was not regarded as a priority area and most of these students droped-out during the year. . The Institute did not have a written language policy document and lectures were sometimes conducted in Afrikaans at the disadvantage of certain students. . Social cohesion among students remained a serious concern for students as there was no transformation plan at the Institute.