Student Uprisings across universities are a clear message that radical economic transformation and free education can no longer be postponed!
The student protests in campuses across the country deserve our unreserved and unconditional support. The protests are a clear message to the ANC government that it is high time that it matches its commitment to free, quality public education to reality.
These protests are a result of the state caving in to corrosive neoliberal policies, rampant privatisation and the commodification of basic services in every facet of our society. Education is being commodified and this is what our heroines and heroes protesting today are resisting! This is a symptom of the failure of the liberation project and a betrayal of the promises for radical economic transformation and justice.
Accordingly government can't hypocritically express shock and pledge sympathy with the demands of the protesting students when it is embracing neoliberal approaches to development that are the real cause of the current students’ uprisings.
The fundamental reasons behind this uprising is that South African university funding has been declining and is today below the average of African countries and trails way behind that of its economic peers. The demand of a broad-based economy and human resources to support a new growth path demands that we spend more and not less on higher education.