Free public higher education is possible and necessary. It’s also realistic, if it’s based on thorough research, consultation and students giving back through community service after graduation.
Most South Africans need serious financial support to make it through university.
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The move by PNG’s Supreme Court to strike down the continued detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island carries danger for both the government and Labor.
In a speech to a Universities Australia dinner, Education Minister Simon Birmingham stressed that he would not rush into a new higher education policy.
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Education Minister Simon Birmingham has flagged that the government is still committed to reconsidering the balance between what students and governments pay for higher education.
South African President Jacob Zuma, who is also the president of the governing African National Congress, with his deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
The ANC will be judged by its ability to deliver on its promises to provide basic services and good governance, practise sound financial management and combat corruption this election year.
Students protest over planned increases in tuition fees in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings
University students in South Africa have shown the potential of mass mobilisation to influence policy in advancing justice for their constitutional democratic rights.
It’s difficult for students who are struggling financially to focus on their academic work.
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For many students, stress about money is a terrible and unwelcome distraction from their degrees – qualifications they hope can lift themselves and their families out of poverty.
Universities are losing sight of their role as places of teaching and learning. Instead, they are becoming hugely stressed business enterprises.
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When funding imperatives dominate universities’ strategies, higher education loses sight of the work it ought to be doing: developing graduates who can make a real difference in the world.
For the first time in a long time, South Africans are hearing stories about those who have been silenced.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings
Student protests in South Africa, as well as an unrelated clash between lawyers, have offered a chance for the country to hear voices that are usually marginalised.
Mass meeting of students at the University of Cape Town.
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Students have won an important victory. But to understand the complex nature of oppression and how to respond to it will require many struggles over a longer period of time.
Protesting students make their way through South Africa’s capital city, Pretoria.
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Don’t let the name fool you: the #feesmustfall protests at South Africa’s universities are about far more than a single issue. A student who has been deeply involved in the protests explains.
South African student protesters make their feelings clear: education is a right and should be free.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings
South African students have won a pyrrhic victory in their battle for free university education. Will students and their institutions ever be able to interact without violent conflict again?
South African students want free university education. In a deeply unequal society, could there be another way?
Kim Ludbrook/EPA
An academic who has marched alongside students during university fee protests in South Africa explains why their demands resonate with her and so many others.
South African students campaigning for lower university fees during a sit-in protest on the steps of Jameson Hall at the University of Cape Town.
Reuters/Mark Wessels
Nicholas Barr, London School of Economics and Political Science
In a good system, university education is free for students while they are studying. They then pay part of the cost once they have graduated.
Thousands of students from the University of the Witwatersrand demonstrate during protests against fee increases which have spread to other major universities in the country.
EPA/Kim Ludbrook
Chief Director: Tshwane University of Technology – Institute for Economic Research on Innovation; Node Head: DST/NRF SciSTIP CoE; and Professor Extraordinary: Stellenbosch University – Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology., Tshwane University of Technology
Director of Centre for Postgraduate Studies, Rhodes University & Visiting Research Professor in Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, Rhodes University