Sans titre

Amidst the ongoing turmoil in South African universities, one institution has emerged as a beacon of resistance; the University of Cape Town (UCT). Leading the charge, UCT students have taken to the front lines for those who have been unfairly barred from registering for the 2025 academic year. Some students have been forced to sleep outside, condemning a system that has failed to provide adequate housing. However, this is not an isolated crisis. It is a national affliction. Thus, the question remains: why are the rest of us silent? Have we been pacified, misguided, or have they simply found ways to dilute our sense of collective struggle?

I cannot answer for other institutions, but I will speak for mine–the University of Pretoria (UP). Here, heroes have risen not in protest but in action. Rather than taking to the streets, The UP Student Representative Council (SRC) launched 'A Re Ageng Bokamoso,' a fund aimed at assisting students unable to afford registration fees or blocked from registering due to historical debt. Within a week or two, they managed to register students without pre-existing debt, requiring financial aid for the first time. The next step? Extending this assistance to students with debt below R10 000.

Their advocacy has not stopped there. The UP SRC has vocally condemned the university’s decision to revoke offers from accepted students, particularly those who had paid their registration and levies. They have coordinated donations from anonymous benefactors, extended the registration date by seven days, until 28 February, 2025, and have initiated a nutrition program to address food insecurity amongst students.

My curiosity lies in an uncomfortable truth: Although these efforts are commendable, they are temporary solutions to a much larger problem. Questions loom–how many students have been assisted? Exactly how much has been raised? Will these students be able to afford the next installation of fees? Is a mere seven day extension enough? And, in a more provocative turn, how much is the SRC compensated for these heroics? Perhaps transparency is a luxury we do not deserve. Our heroes are, after all, doing their best. Right? One could argue that a true demonstration of solidarity would require the choice to relinquish their decadent salaries to support these struggling students, in addition to external donors.

While the UP SRC has taken meaningful steps, the unfortunate reality is that they have grown quiet on the broader fight. It seems the collective struggle has been abandoned. Should we not stand alongside the many universities lacking anonymous benefactors? Is it enough that our own are edging towards stability?

Image taken from Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh's 'Fallism's Faultlines: The Paradoxes of “Fees Must Fall”'

It has been 10 years since the rise of the #feesmustfall movement, a nationwide call for accessible and decolonized education. At the same time, it seemed as though we were witnessing a turning point in South Africa's democratic evolution; an era where the government and universities would finally dismantle the economic barriers that have historically excluded the majority of black students from higher education. Yet, here we stand in 2025, with students still being denied the fundamental right to education due to financial constraints.

The recent protests at the University of Cape Town (UCT) paint a grim picture of our country's failure to addressing systematic inequalities. Around 600 students, facing fee blocks and housing shortages, marched in protest. Their demands were simple: that students with outstanding fees be allowed to register and graduate, and that the institution provide adequate student housing. These are not radical demands. They are the bare minimum that any just society should guarantee. Yet, UCT's leadership's response was predictable platitudes of "commitment to finding solutions" without substantive action.

The persistence of financial exclusion is not an unfortunate oversight; it is a deliberate policy failure. The South African government had a decade to implement structural reforms that would prevent academically capable students from being locked out of Higher Education due to their economic hardship. Instead, it has continued to underfund higher education while turning a blind eye to the economic segregation that defines our institutions today. Wealth remains concentrated in the hands of the white minority, while black students, many from working class families, are systematically priced out of universities. This is nothing short of a betrayal of the democratic ideals that 1994 promised.

Education in South Africa is not merely a part way to individual success; it is a tool for dismantling the economic legacy of apartheid. For many black students, it represents a lifetime, a chance to break cycles of poverty entrenched by centuries of racialized economic exclusion. To deny them this right is to uphold the very structures of oppression that our government claims to oppose.