Extra $1.2B for South African students after protests

By Hassan Isilow and Shu’eib Hassen

CAPE TOWN, South Africa

Months of protest by South African students seemed to have been rewarded Wednesday when Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan announced an extra 17 billion rand ($1.2 billion) in higher education funding.

Delivering his medium-term budget in parliament, Gordhan said the additional money would be used to pay tuition fees for poorer students through the National Students Financial Aid Scheme.

However, as he made the announcement police fired stun grenades and tear gas to disperse hundreds of students demanding free education outside the parliament in Cape Town.

Some student representatives were unhappy at the announcement, in which Gordhan declared higher education and training were now the fastest growing element in the budget after debt servicing costs.

“We remain resolute in our call for free, quality and decolonized education,” the Student Representative Council of Johannesburg’s Witwatersrand University said in a statement.

Student protests and class boycotts began last month following the announcement of an 8 percent tuition hike for the 2017 academic year.

The protests have often been violent. Last week, campus security guards were reportedly locked inside a burning building as students set fire to the main entrance of a Cape Town university.

Similar protests last year forced the government to abandon a 2016 tuition increase.