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FeesMustFall
#FeesMustFall was a student-led protest movement that began in mid-October 2015 in South Africa. The goals of the movement were to stop increases in student fees as well as to increase government funding of universities. Protests started at the University of Witwatersrand and spread to the University of Cape Town and Rhodes University before rapidly spreading to other universities across the country. Although initially enjoying significant public support the protest movement started to lose public sympathy when the protests started turning violent.
The 2015 protest ended when it was announced by the South African government that there would be no tuition fee increases for 2016. The protest in 2016 began when the South African Minister of Higher Education announced that there would be fee increases capped at 8% for 2017; however, each institution was given the freedom to decide by how much their tuition would increase. By October 2016, the Department of Education estimated that the total cost in property damage due to the protest since 2015 had amounted to R600 million (equivalent to US$44.25 million).
The protests followed a threeday student lock-down of the University of the Witwatersrand campus the week before following an announcement by the university that fees would be increasing by 10.5% in the following year despite an inflation rate of only around 6% for the same year. The university's chief financial officer stated that the cause of the high increase in fees was:
1. The rand-dollar exchange rate has fallen by approximately 22%, which has resulted in a substantial increase in the amount of money that we pay for all library books, journals, electronic resources, research equipment that are procured in dollars and euros.
2. Salary increases for academics are set at 7% based on a three-year cycle and these increases are necessary to ensure that we retain the best intellectual minds in the country.
3. Generic inflation is hovering at around 6% which impacts on all other expenses that the University has to cover.
4. Utilities are increasing at rates substantially higher than the inflation rate.
Although the focus of the protests was focused on a rise in fees a number of factors formed the background for the protests from a lack of funding for poorer students to attend university, high incomes for university managers, a real decline in government funding for higher education, lack of social transformation, to broader socio-economic and racial inequality issues.
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FeesMustFall
#FeesMustFall was a student-led protest movement that began in mid-October 2015 in South Africa. The goals of the movement were to stop increases in student fees as well as to increase government funding of universities. Protests started at the University of Witwatersrand and spread to the University of Cape Town and Rhodes University before rapidly spreading to other universities across the country. Although initially enjoying significant public support the protest movement started to lose public sympathy when the protests started turning violent.
The 2015 protest ended when it was announced by the South African government that there would be no tuition fee increases for 2016. The protest in 2016 began when the South African Minister of Higher Education announced that there would be fee increases capped at 8% for 2017; however, each institution was given the freedom to decide by how much their tuition would increase. By October 2016, the Department of Education estimated that the total cost in property damage due to the protest since 2015 had amounted to R600 million (equivalent to US$44.25 million).
The protests followed a threeday student lock-down of the University of the Witwatersrand campus the week before following an announcement by the university that fees would be increasing by 10.5% in the following year despite an inflation rate of only around 6% for the same year. The university's chief financial officer stated that the cause of the high increase in fees was:
1. The rand-dollar exchange rate has fallen by approximately 22%, which has resulted in a substantial increase in the amount of money that we pay for all library books, journals, electronic resources, research equipment that are procured in dollars and euros.
2. Salary increases for academics are set at 7% based on a three-year cycle and these increases are necessary to ensure that we retain the best intellectual minds in the country.
3. Generic inflation is hovering at around 6% which impacts on all other expenses that the University has to cover.
4. Utilities are increasing at rates substantially higher than the inflation rate.
Although the focus of the protests was focused on a rise in fees a number of factors formed the background for the protests from a lack of funding for poorer students to attend university, high incomes for university managers, a real decline in government funding for higher education, lack of social transformation, to broader socio-economic and racial inequality issues.
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