South Africa Student Protest
photo credit: 2021 The Associated Press.
The South African Federation of Trade Unions has described as insulting recent utterances by Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande on student protests.
Nzimande held an online meeting with the South African Union of Students and members of Parliament on Tuesday, likening the protests for free higher education to a soap opera.
Students have, in recent weeks, disrupted operations at tertiary institutions calling for the scrapping of historic debt and that free higher education be realised.
SAFTU’s Spokesperson Trevor Shaku calls for Minister Nzimande to resign.
“He must resign because uttering and using such a metaphor and likening students to a soap opera was insulting of the efforts that the students have been making in fighting against financial exclusion, but also fighting for free education. The government that came into power on the card of providing free education and other social services has not brought free education, more than 20 years later. The reason why students are fighting on a yearly basis is that the government has not provided or made sure that free education is realizable.”