Students sit in protest during a mass demonstration on the steps of Jameson Hall at the University of Cape Town, October 22
In a victory for protesting students, South African President Jacob Zuma backtracked on October 23 and cancelled a planned university fee rise next year.
The decision came after days of student demonstrations shook South Africa in recent days. Plans to hike tuition fees for next year caused mass outrage for maintaining Apartheid-era barriers for its Black population, reported on October 21.
Protests on at least five university campuses have escalated and resulted in the arrest of 23 student activists.
The hashtag 鈥淔ees Must Fall鈥 has been used by students to publicise their protest against tuition hikes, which began when students shut down parts of the University of the Witwatersrand after a tuition hike of 10.5% was announced.
Many of the campuses facing protests, including the universities of Cape Town and Rhodes, were white-only institutions under Apartheid rule. TeleSUR English said this led students to say that the fee rise would disproportionately affect Black and poor people.
A group calling itself the National Shutdown Collective said in an October 20 statement: 鈥淲e, the students of 2015, stand in solidarity with one another to proclaim that we will not be complicit in an endorsement of the capitalist agenda of commodification of education and any oppressions which seek to denigrate our being.
鈥淲e demand, among other things, that the exorbitant fees charged at institutions of higher learning be lowered in line with a progression toward opening the gates of higher learning for all.鈥
Like the article? Subscribe to 麻豆传媒 now! You can also us on Facebook and on Twitter.