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South Africa’s universities are on tenterhooks following this morning’s announcement by Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande that each university should decide its own fee increase for 2017.
Reactions from students were different at insitutions around the country:
Johannesburg
A decision on fee increments at the University of Johannesburg will be made within two weeks, spokesperson Herman Esterhuizen said today.
“We are going to consult with our students regarding the minister’s announcement. In two to three weeks, a decision will be made.”
Esterhuizen said the institution’s council would engage in talks to establish the fee increment for 2017. He said, so far, there had been no protests at the university.
“Our students are currently on recess. There have been no protests as yet and very few students are on campus.”
Wits
Meanwhile, just a few kilometres away, pockets of students at the University of the Witwatersrand rejected Nzimande’s announcement.
News24 reported that Wits students were divided on the way forward following Nzimande’s announcement, with some calling for an immediate shutdown of the institution.
During his announcement, Nzimande said he had consulted with various stakeholders in terms of the best way to handle the situation.
He said, to ensure that such inflation-linked fee adjustments of the 2015 fee baseline were affordable to financially-needy students, government was committed to finding the resources to support all students.
He said the government would assist households with an income of less than R600 000 a year, with subsidy funding to cover the gap between the 2015 fee and adjusted 2017 fee at the relevant institutions.
Free State
The student representative council at the University of the Free State announced today that the institution would be shut for the week.
Student council president Lindokuhle Ntuli told hundreds of students gathered at the student centre that a national shutdown was needed in response to the minister’s announcement.
“Our call is for the government to fund the poor and we can’t compromise that. Since the beginning of the year, government has been delaying to look into the grievances of students,” he said.
One student who was part of the crowd, Kelebogile Thulo, said she was shocked when she heard Nzimande’s announcement.
“Blade is arrogant, we thought he learnt his lesson last year. Black students are going to suffer,” she said.
Another student, Sam Styrax, said: “Blade has played a very clever trick by shifting the responsibilities to students. He wants us to blame the universities for fee increase.”
Cape Town
The University of Cape Town suspended the academic programme in anticipation of the fee increment announcement.
Within hours of Nzimande’s briefing, more than 200 students were gathered at the institution’s main square, also the site of many student protests over the past two years.
Earlier, a group of students barricaded the North and South Stops with boulders. These were removed by traffic officers and police. There was visible security, from a helicopter to public order police vans patrolling the periphery.
At a mass student gathering, student council candidate Khululwa Mthi said students rejected Blade “our dear father” Nzimande’s 8% fee cap. His comments were met with applause.
The students had a list of demands, including protection from victimisation or disciplinary proceedings for those who participated in protests, a R12 000 salary for UCT workers, who should be insourced, and the removal of all statues and plaques on campus “celebrating white supremacists”.
Stellenbosch
Student life carried on as usual at Stellenbosch University.
Students sat in the sun chatting and having lunch, discussing the merits of various courses, along with general chit-chat.
A group of students who watched the livestream in the Lilian Ngoyi auditorium seemed muted in their response to the news that the government would subsidise existing National Student Financial Aid Scheme beneficiaries and students whose parents earned less than R600 000 a year.
Families outside of those categories would have to wait for the individual universities to announce their own increases.
“He is just playing with us,” said students in one group.
Another group outside the auditorium said they did not know what Nzimande had announced.
A woman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the issue was not the percentage of the increase, but reaching the goal of free education.
She said most of the students who could not afford university fees were black.
“Students will not wait any more,” she said.
“I don’t need fees to fall, but there are more students who cannot afford it.”
Last year, university fee increases were frozen after nationwide student protests.
UKZN
The University of KwaZulu-Natal Howard College student representative council says the fee increase was exactly what they had been protesting against.
“From the beginning of our protests we were clear that we do not want any increment increase. The issues of fees increment it is our main issue,” the council’s deputy president Sunshine Myende said.
Myende added that the student council would still have to determine how the increase would affect the students.
She said that while there were currently no planned protests, the council meeting would “determine various factors around the increase”.
“Our council meeting is [scheduled for] today. Council must speak on fee increments. Everything will be determined by the council meeting.
“We want free education. And we want it ... to be this year or never.”
Myende was critical of government saying the fee increase announcement should have been made earlier in the year.
According to Myende, at the beginning of the year, students resolved to undertake various initiatives to raise funds for those who could not afford fees.
“We have been asking people to donate and we have been selling various items.” – News24
