By SHOKS MNISI MZOLO
In Summary
- Protester's have voiced their demands to university councils, ANC’s headquarters, parliament and the president’s office. However, some of the rioters have destroyed property and torched cars.
- The student leaders say the protests stem from poverty and inequality. This twin problem has persisted since the end of apartheid. This is an issue that President Jacob Zuma and opposition leaders, even the liberal right, agree on.
- The student protests are fuelled by the demand to end the “commodification” and “commercialisation” of education in the country. “We cannot protest every year for a moratorium, there needs to be a greater structural solution to the crisis of higher education,” said the Wits University student council in a statement.
Images of violent battles in university campuses in South
Africa as students protest under the hash tag #FeesMustFall have
dominated the news in the past couple of months. The riots, which
started in October, call for a decolonised curriculum and an end to
racism.
Protesters have voiced their demands to university councils,
ANC’s headquarters, parliament and the president’s office. However, some
of the rioters have destroyed property and torched cars.
At the University of KwaZulu-Natal the destruction of property
cost the institution R80 million ($5.7 million). Scores of student
leaders were arrested for public violence and one of them, Lukhanyo
Banda Mtshingana — who spent 31 days behind bars — was scheduled to
appear in court, while another leader, Shaeera Kalla, is still
recovering after being shot 13 times with rubber bullets.
Journalists have also been victims of police brutality.
The student leaders say the protests stem from poverty and
inequality. This twin problem has persisted since the end of apartheid.
This is an issue that President Jacob Zuma and opposition leaders, even
the liberal right, agree on.
Annual tuition fees at South Africa’s world-class universities
such as the universities of Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria,
Stellenbosch and Wits average between R40,000 ($2,806) and R50,000
($3,508). Universities such as Pretoria and Stellenbosch routinely draw
ire for racism and limiting access for local students through
discriminatory policies.
A student who takes three years to complete their degree will
pay total tuition fees of $11,000. Add to that accommodation, food and
other living expenses and the grand total exceeds $20,000.
To stretch their meagre budgets, underprivileged students
undergo starvation, others are forced to live in slums like Crossroads
and Khayelitsha in Cape Town. For poor students in Johannesburg, crammed
favela skyscrapers like Hillbrow have become home.
High tuition fees and no jobs
One student living in Hillbrow spent eight years to attain her
LLB from Wits University, after she gave up full-time studies at the end
of her first year to find a job to supplement a government loan that
covered only half her tuition fees.
Most varsities get 40 per cent to 50 per cent of their income
from tuition fees. Government student aid scheme chairman Sizwe Nxasana
said the fund will launch a pilot project in 2017 to grant poor students
loans of up to $7,000 per year, with the loan payable when the student
gets a job.
The problem of high tuition fees is compounded by a shortage of
jobs. Data from StatsSA, an official agency, shows that one in two
adults is jobless. Out of those with jobs, more than 50 per cent earn
less than R10,000 ($700) per month, according to BankservAfrica
Disposable Salary Index. Further, 12 million people, a fifth of the
population, face food insecurity according to Food Bank SA.
The increasing levels of poverty make “the inequality of social
justice more prominent,” said Mvuyo Tom, rector at the University of
Fort Hare.
A North-West University study on post-apartheid higher education
linked rising drop-out rates to high tuition fees. More than two-thirds
of all candidates who drop out, especially in the first year, are from
poor black households.
Race-pay gaps
In South Africa, the term “black” refers to people of African
and Asian descent. In general, not only are black graduates often
debt-ridden owing to study loans but some report race-pay gaps — a relic
of apartheid. The study also found that white graduates are the
majority at masters and PhD levels.
The issue of lack of funds also affects many schoolchildren from
poor areas, even though the government funds free education until Grade
12. Working-class parents are barely able to buy their children lunch
or winter clothes. In townships and rural schools, classrooms often have
50 to 120 pupils, says City Press. Not only are these schools
overcrowded but they are also understaffed and ill-equipped.
Contrast that with suburban Model C schools in mostly white
neighbourhoods where students thrive due to a mix of generous budgets,
highly trained teachers, functional laboratories and libraries and
extra-curricular programmes. Their $1,000 annual fees make them
exclusive.
“To be honest, as much as the government is trying to provide
free education to all learners in South Africa, there is still a large
gap between what are considered Model C schools, and those considered
disadvantaged,” says Marvel Makhubele is a young professional involved
in Brain-G, an empowerment project designed to break the
inter-generational poverty cycle.
Coming from a poor background himself, Makhubele is one of the
few black South Africans with a masters degree in petroleum geology.
“Most of the learners in disadvantaged areas come to school
hungry,” said Makhubele, who saw about 56 per cent of his classmates
fail Grade 12. “Learners come from homes where there is probably one
breadwinner in a family of six or more children. How do you teach a
hungry kid?” he asks.
This disparity in wealth in South Africa, where the millionaire
population is the 36th largest on the globe and executives earn seven
figures annually. However, for ordinary citizens, salaries are on
average five figures.
Graduates loitering
The National Union of Mineworkers noted that it would take 400
years for a mineworker to earn the annual salary of an executive at any
mining firm. Exploitation is also reportedly rife on coastal farms where
the average salary is $100 per month.
These low wages make it difficult for families to take their
children to good schools or to university. The poor have to turn to the
government and banks for loans — not every applicant is successful — or
students have to find part-time work, which means taking a longer time
to complete their studies.
Still most families from poor backgrounds place a high value on
tertiary education. Twenty-year old student Luhle Dolosi said: “I’m the
only hope for my family. I’m the only one who has a chance to take them
out of poverty and I want to get educated and get a decent job.”
However, owing to the size of the market, not all graduates get
jobs and as a result many can be found loitering in the streets.
Another group that is languishing is a marginalised segment that
includes domestic workers. South Africa has in excess of one million
domestic workers. According to StatsSA, they account for eight per cent
of the labour force. The lucky few earn R50,000 ($3,500) annually, but
transport alone costs them 15 per cent of their salaries owing to forced
removals from city centres decades ago, notes a study by Darcy du Toit
of the University of the Western Cape.
The student protests are fuelled by the demand to end the
“commodification” and “commercialisation” of education in the country.
“We cannot protest every year for a moratorium, there needs to be a
greater structural solution to the crisis of higher education,” said the
Wits University student council in a statement.
“We are out in the streets again... to lay the foundations of
free decolonised education on campuses across the country,” Brian
Kamanzi an electrical engineering masters student at the University of
Cape Town said in an opinion piece. “South Africa’s education system is
still rooted in the colonial and apartheid eras, and their injustices
persist in its structure and financial set-up
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