I will not be excluded - blind UKZN student marches against fee increase
20 September 2016
Pietermaritzburg - Through the sweltering Pietermaritzburg heat, blind student Sandile Madlala stood at the front of a group numbering the hundreds that marched in protest over a prospective University of KwaZulu-Natal fee increase.
The students, roused by the chorus of struggle songs, amassed outside Pietermaritzburg's provincial legislature to demand free education.
This after the announcement by Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande that tertiary institutions could hike their 2017 fees by up to 8% for those who could afford it. Students who qualify for NSFAS or whose families earn above the NSFAS threshold, but who are unable to support their children to access higher education, will experience no fee increase in 2017.
The social sciences student said with his disability he had always faced exclusion and would not stand and be excluded from having an education.