The introduction of free education should follow a gradual process, starting with the lowest levels.
Students at St Dominic Bukna Secondary School in Kisumu, Kenya, take their English test outdoors due to overcrowding in classrooms.
Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images
In announcing free higher education, South African President Jacob Zuma, lobbed a populist hot potato at the ANC elective conference but it’s ordinary people whose fingers will be burnt.
Delegates attending the 54th National Conference of the ruling African National Congress in South Africa.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
A closer look at the resolution of South Africa’s ruling party, the ANC, show that it won’t undertake a radical economic transformation agenda as suggested by media reports.
Cyril Ramaphosa, newly elected president of South Africa’s governing ANC, during his maiden address.
EPA-EFE/Stringer
Free university education and land redistribution without compensation have far-reaching implications for South Africa’s economy, and requires exceptional leadership.
Student protests in South Africa have centred around free tertiary education.
Reuters/Sumaya Hisham
Some students argue wrongly that the ANC has betrayed the promise of free higher education made in the Freedom Charter. The governing party’s populism is also to blame for the confusion.
South Africa’s student protests are raising difficult issues, some of which are not being debated openly.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
Demands being made by protesting students in South Africa purport to support the poor. But the most marginalised young people in the country will not benefit from free higher education.
There has been a great deal of research, planning and talking to come up with solutions to South Africa’s higher education funding crisis. Some of these plans must now be put into action.
South Africa’s government-run student loan scheme needs an overhaul.
Mike Hutchings/Reuters
A “buy now, pay later” model is well suited to financing higher education. Commercial bank loans are not viable. Government-backed loans with income-contingent repayment are the fair solution.
“Free” education is not fair or sustainable.
Reuters/Mark Hutchings
Higher education is a resource intensive enterprise. It cannot effectively function without a massive injection of resources in a sustained and escalated manner.
Ongoing student protests are unlikely to have been a direct cause of universities’ slide down global rankings tables.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings
It’s unlikely that student protests are directly affecting South African universities’ rankings. Instead, decades of government underfunding in higher education may be at least partly to blame.
University students are fed up that their calls for free education are being ignored.
Nic Bothma/EPA
South Africa’s higher education minister has dealt with fee increments for 2017 but sidestepped students’ fundamental issue: an ongoing call to make higher education free for all.
Students have been emboldened and won’t give up their demand for free education.
Nic Bothma/EPA
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.
Unfortunately ‘free’ public higher education is never actually free.
Shiraaz Mohamed/EPA
If higher education is made “free” for all, the whole society ends up paying more. That’s deeply unjust in already unequal societies, such as those in Africa.
Students demand free access for all at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
Mark Wessels/Reuters
Many people dismiss the idea of free, quality public university education out of hand. But there are many ways to make it happen - and it all ties back to the idea of education as a public good.
School fee exemptions that are meant to help poor families can actually cause them major problems.
Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters
South Africa’s fee exemption system is at the heart of a deepening divide in the country’s school sector. It’s time for a major relook at how this policy is applied.
Protesting students make their way through South Africa’s capital city, Pretoria.
Paul Saad/Flickr
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
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