Western Cape ANC warns of new‚ more violent fees protests

The ANC in the Western Cape has warned that protests at campuses around the country will be more violent this year. In addition there will be a lack of unity among protesting students.

However this time the ruling party has warned that it will ‘’not allow the disruption’’ of another academic year.

On Tuesday the party started several meetings with the leadership of tertiary institutions including the University of the Western Cape.

Provincial party spokesman‚ Yonela Diko‚ vowed to protect infrastructure and “students who want to learn“.     

In addition‚ Diko said‚ through their engagement with protest leaders they have picked up that “protest fatigue” exists among students.

Students are trying to quantify what has been achieved over the past two years of protests. The party found it interesting that while many have called for “decolonised free education‚” students were not sure what exactly this means.

“I even asked them: ‘Where is this decolonised education? Does it have text books‚ does it have a curriculum‚ who will be teaching it?’ Nobody has really thought deeper on those aspects and I think these students do get embarrassed when they are given a platform to speak about it‚” said Diko.

“There is still a feeling that they haven’t achieved ‘free decolonised education’…so we might see some pocketed protests in the beginning of [this] year.”

Diko said they had been mandated by the ANC’s National Executive Council to speak to management of tertiary institutions. This is to assess how prepared they are for the 2017 academic year.

Among the items on the agenda is the affordability of fees and what their expectations from government are.

On Tuesday they are set to meet with College of Cape Town principal Louis van Niekerk.

Van Niekerk said it the party’s first visit to the campus.

He will be pleading with the ANC not to use students as a political football.

Van Niekerk said: “We need to do something to grow our economy so that our students can get jobs‚ so that there is light at the end of the tunnel.”

Next is UWC’s vice-chancellor Professor Tyrone Pretorius on Thursday and next week the party is set to meet with Professor Max Price from the University of Cape Town.

FeesMustFall protesters have already expressed dissatisfaction with finance minister Pravin Gordhan’s announced that government would allocate an extra R5 billion to tertiary education‚ bringing the total spending on “post-school education and training” to R77.6 billion.

“If the minister had at least mentioned that they were willing to use that R5 billion to settle historical debt from last year and the year before we would have considered that as negotiating in good faith. If they had spoken about paying registration possibly across all universities we would have considered that good faith‚ they have been collecting money in the name of Fees Must Fall‚ we have not seen that money‚” Wits Fees Must Fall leader‚ Busisiwe Seabe told the SABC.

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