Solutions for South African Universities

Recently in South Africa, there have been tension for several years now, as people are getting frustrated with the corruption in the government, economic instability and how people are promised a better future but there is not any change, instead it gets worse day by day. People have no jobs or they are not paid enough for their services. Usually when people are frustrated in the workforce they start a strike in order for the people in power to pay attention and take action in order to help the situations.

We have seen strikes come and go in South Africa, but not one as consistent as the #FeesMustFall movement that has been ongoing for almost two years. #FeesMustFall movement started in 2015 when the Minister of Higher Education announced that University Fees will increase. Students all over the country were bewildered by this announcement and they started a #hashtag on social media, which led to a strike all the country, where universities were disrupted and it was not safe for students on campuses. The strikes  focus was to shutdown all activities on campuses until, the minister decides to no increment of the fees.

That particular goal was achieved, when it was announced that there will be no increment of the fees, however several months later, the announcement was made again that university fees will increase again and we back to square one. The question is did the student representatives not represent the students well enough or the government did not really come up with a proper solution to this problem. I think the people in charge of finding solutions for these strikes, only got short term solutions just so that other students could be back on campus to finish the academic year.

The problem is not that the students did not press hard enough for results but they believe and accepted, when they were told that the fees will not increase, but they never saw the results or signed an agreement that guaranteed that there will definitely not be any fee increases. The solution to that is to not accept anything unless it is guaranteed, sign a contract or something that one can refer to when things take a turn. Another problem was that the students were not unified, it made an impact on some people but other people did not want any part of it, that is because some people did not fully understand what the movement is all about therefore they did not take part.

Had the students united, no matter the colour of your skin, social status, religious belief etc. Had we stood together fought this together, this movement would have been more powerful than it already was. As people, we need to think about one another, even if the you have never been in the same situations as your peers we need to stand together when the odds are against us, that is the one way we will win.

Love

NT08💙💙