South Africa's student movement has scored a big victory after plans to raise university fees were scrapped following weeks of nationwide protests that culminated in the government's turnaround. The demonstrations have been the biggest student protests to hit the country since apartheid ended in 1994, and the one this past week was the largest single student protest since the 1976 Soweto uprising, an iconic moment in the fight against South Africa's apartheid regime. Police used stun grenades and water cannons to stop student protesters from breaking into the Union Buildings, the seat of government in Pretoria, before South African President Jacob Zuma ruled out any increases in university tuition fees for next year. Initially, fees were to go up by 10 percent, but the government lowered the increase to six percent before freezing the hikes altogether. It seems impossible to separate the current protests from the apartheid-era racial divide. One of the major laws of apartheid was the Bantu Education Act of 1953 which prevented black children from reaching their full potential. The curriculum of that time was tailored to the "nature and requirements of the black people". The aim was to prevent Africans receiving an education that would lead them to aspire to positions they would not be allowed to hold in society. Many black students come from poor families, and the fee increases would have robbed them of the opportunity to continue studying. They thus believed that apartheid, in the form of increased college tuitions, was preventing them from becoming an integral part of their society. The anger of the protests which erupted across many of South Africa's public universities was not focused just on education but on the deep-rooted economic and racial problems remaining a generation after the end of apartheid. No surprise, then, that in recent days, the protests spread outside the campuses, as students leveled their ire directly at the government, at the seats of political power, whether at the Union Buildings in Pretoria or the parliament in Cape Town. Specifically, the target was the African National Congress which nearly single-handedly shaped post-apartheid South Africa. The ANC had pledged to create the post-apartheid nation of opportunity and equality, but the protesters, now and in fact throughout the year, demanded to know why they were still struggling after they were promised so much in 1994. The year-long campus protests amounted to an indictment of the ANC, especially under Zuma, for it had come to be seen as a corrupt political machine more interested in enriching its members than in lifting up the poor blacks who supported it before and after apartheid. The protests showed the growing disillusionment with the ANC over high levels of poverty, unemployment and corruption in government. Perhaps the biggest difference between today's protests and those of decades before was the participants who represented a broad cross-section of the country's racial groups and political parties. The protests cut across South Africa's deep political divide: black and white, rich and poor stood side by side. No political parties were involved. Financially better-off white students joined in, mainly to show solidarity with the black students. Although Zuma has backed down, promising a zero increase in university fees in 2016, it remains unclear how the freeze on fees will be funded. During the protests, universities said they needed to increase fees to maintain standards, but the government does not know how much it will pay or where the money will come from. Apparently, correcting the historical legacies of apartheid has collided with the pragmatic financial constraints of higher education.
