Question

Question 1 (20 marks)

As an International Economics student, discuss the challenges that South Africa will face or is facing in implementing free higher education in the presence of rising international debt.

Answer 1

Requests for free higher education and other social services such as Africa's health and basic education date back to the 1960s. These requirements were prevalent across different ideologically oriented nations – from socialist Mozambique and Tanzania to capitalist Kenya and Uganda.

One of the unintended implications is that free higher education has created gross inequities. It reproduced and strengthened colonial and post-colonial inequities in the allocation of universities and privileges, and hence of free greater education beneficiaries.

As is well recognized, in most African nations, the distribution of (excellent quality) schools in both colonial and post-colonial periods has been and remains uneven. It was the kids of the new political and company elite that gained access to free education mostly.

Over the previous two years, universities in South Africa have experienced unprecedented student revolts. It started as demonstrations against an increase in tuition fees and asking for the removal of apartheid symbols from the past. It gained momentum quickly and became a domestic student uprising with requests for free access and higher education decolonization.

Student protests are a significant expression of South Africa's greater education transformation weaknesses and failures. They also arose as an illustration of growing frustration with South Africa's government, its extreme inequalities, its rampant poverty, and its enormous youth unemployment. For many years, social protests and community actions have been a characteristic of South African politics, but student protests have been the first significant national protest wave.

The South African government and the Treasury have the economic resources at their disposal, but it may not be a useful answer to abolish charges in an exceptionally unequal culture. In fact, it can help to increase inequalities. There is a substantial minority of learners with more than 600 000 parents who can afford tuition. Indeed, some of them have their private high school schooling with greater charges than the most costly universities in South Africa. In addition, graduation from an organization of higher education paves the way for well-paid employment in the government or private sector

Lastly, the problems facing South African greater education are related to the broader problems facing South Africa: bad financial growth, elevated youth unemployment, and the paralyzing impact of the ANC management and government political crisis. The protests of the students couldn't really transform themselves into a force for political change. In the larger South African political image, it plays a much more restricted role than maybe initially anticipated. It suffers from the lack of any clear management or approach to move forward. In this sense, the student protests have become a symptom of South Africa's many ills and failures rather than a force for change.