Facing the largest student uprisings since South Africans toppled apartheid, President Jacob Zuma pledged Friday to halt tuition fee increases in the year 2016—prompting declarations of victory, as well as calls to continue the mass mobilizations until free education is won for all.
“A famous victory won by the hard struggle of students. We are all humbled,” Salim Vally, associate professor of education and director of the Center for Education Rights and Transformation at the University of Johannesburg, told Common Dreams. “The determination and resoluteness of the students forced the hand of government. This was clear to many even before the sun rose this morning.”
“Many lessons learned and an incredibly important educational experience for us all,” Vally continued. “Foremost of which is that unity and mass struggle works.”
Following a meeting with student organizers and university management, Zuma announced to reporters: “On the matter at hand we agreed that there will be a zero increase of university fees in 2016.”
The president’s concessions were met with widespread celebration, but not all expressed satisfaction. “We should be having free education,” said 18-year-old Bongani Shabangu, who is studying education at a Pretoria university, in an interview with The Irish Independent. “Most of us are from poor families.”
And, when large crowds rallied outside the main government complexes in Pretoria on Friday to demand that Zuma address them directly, police forces pelted them with water cannons, stun grenades, and tear gas.
What’s more, many are still furious at police brutality against protesters and are calling for the government to drop steep charges levied against dozens of demonstrators who were detained.
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Patrick Bond, professor of Political Economy at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, told Common Dreams that students have won a “historic victory over South African neoliberalism.”
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