Cosatu supports students protests against fee increases
The Congress of South African Trade Unions supports the nationwide students’ protests against fee increases. These fee increases are excessive and unaffordable in the current economic climate.
South Africa has a crisis of unemployment and the majority of workers earn less than R5000 a month. Education is already unaffordable and the above inflation increases will exacerbate an already bad situation.
The corporatisation of education perpetuates the apartheid engineered exclusions of the working class and black people in particular. These fee increases are a sign that most universities are not student centred institutions. They lack the necessary developmental consciousness that can help the country overcome the legacy of apartheid and resolve the existing inequalities.
We are fully behind the call for a free education as promised by the Freedom Charter. This commodification of education will continue to keep working class children at the bottom end of the economic pyramid.
It is an established fact that higher education is correlated with better employment outcomes and greater labour market participation. For most people a university degree offers an escape from unemployment and grinding poverty. Pricing education out of the reach of most people is suicidal for this country.