#FeesMustFall: What are the student protests about?

The students have won their demand of a 0% increase

in tuition fees, with planned fee increases of up to
11.5%, at the heart of the protests. However, as
ongoing demonstrations prove, the students' demands
have been deeper than this. They have called for the
"decolonization" and "transformation" of higher
education institutions, the insourcing of outsourced
workers (mostly cleaning, security and support staff,
often the most vulnerable workers), and the release of
their classmates arrested earlier in the week.
South Africa, by many measures, is the most unequal
society in the world. A quick look at national statistics
from 2014 shows that on average the top 10% of wage
earners take home 90 times more in wages than
bottom 10%, the top 1% earn 393 times the bottom
10%. Inequality, measured by the Gini coefficient (a
measure in which 0 is perfect equality and 1 perfect
inequality), is a staggering 0.66. Disturbingly,
inequality has increased since the fall of apartheid.
Working people cannot afford basic necessities. Recent research shows that a worker with an
average of three dependents - all else remaining the same- will need to earn a wage of R4,125 (200)
a month to live above the poverty line. A shocking 60% of black African workers earn less than that,
confirming that poverty, inequality and race in South Africa go hand-in-hand. Although state funding
and university scholarships do exist, for many families university fees that can cost upwards of R40
000 (2,000) make higher education an unattainable dream.
South Africa's youth also face a broader crisis. A third of young people, aged 15 to 24, are not
employed or in higher education and the unemployment rate for this group is 50%. Primary and
secondary education is also woefully inadequate, with only 36% of students who start grade 1
completing their grade 12 exams. Once again, schools in black townships and rural areas have the
least access to quality education. Not all protesting students come from poor backgrounds but they
all agree about one thing: fees represent access, both to higher education and to a better, more
prosperous life.
Democratizing higher educationThe protests and student demands are not only about access but
about the nature of higher education itself. Academia in South Africa remains a white,
predominantly male space. In 2012, white academics made up 53% of full-time permanent academic
staff. That is a staggering amount when you consider that white people make up only 8% of the
population.
An insufficient pool of "talented" black PhD students is one of the reasons given to explain the lack
of advancement of black students into academic positions. In some fields there is a lack of black
South African PhD graduates and they do remain underrepresented. This said, in 2013, on

aggregate, 50% of PhD enrollments and 44% of graduates were black, with 44% of them female most coming from highly respected universities. Therefore umbers alone cannot explain the
marginalization of young black academics.
Shifting the racial balance of staff is crucial to achieve meaningful reform but it is insufficient. White
dominance is not just about numbers, it is about patterns of thinking and the style and content of
teaching. This is why students have been calling for the "decolonization" of higher education. They
recognize that a university education shapes the way we see the world and that there is the danger
that without explicit intervention a Euro-centric view of the world, which marginalizes African
voices, may continue to prevail irrespective of racial diversity in the teaching staff.
Of course dissatisfaction with higher education is not unique to South Africa. In recent years
students in the UK, Chile and elsewhere around the world, have asked their governments to provide
the political will, bureaucratic competence and tax revenue to ensure that a university education
remains within the reach of students who might desire it. With President Zuma conceding to no rise
in school fees, young South Africans are showing us that raising one's voice is never in vain. The
struggle will be long but the students have won the first battle, proving change can happen.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/27/africa/fees-must-fall-student-protest-south-africa-explainer/