Varsity profs must develop own course content to curb fee increases – Manyi

7 September 2016

Johannesburg – South African professors can help in the battle to lower university tuition fees by producing more of their own course content, according to Progressive Professionals Forum (PPF) president Mzwanele Jimmy Manyi.

"Part of these expenses is licencing fees for the content, which I am told costs around 50% of the expenditure," he told News24.

Manyi said the PPF was in full support of free education and that they believed it was possible, with the reprioritisation of resources, but added that universities needed to play their part too.

"We call for our own professors to develop their own content, I believe content makes up 50% of the costs. What happened to our own academics? Why can't they develop content?"

On Wednesday morning, Manyi expressed disappointment at the torching of a law library at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and called on Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande to engage more with students.

Some students have embarked on protests over fears of tuition fee increments in 2017.

Recently, Nzimande has twice postponed the announcement of fee increases, claiming he needed to consult further.

This article first appeared on News24, see here.