Fees Must Fall activist Bonginkosi Khanyile says he is shocked to see their sacrifice having come to naught. Picture: Jacques Nelles
While some Fees Must Fall movement activists are still dealing with the consequences of criminal records attained during their fight for free higher education, one of their formerly imprisoned comrades says he is shocked to see their sacrifice having come to naught.
Bonginkosi Khanyile, who was convicted for his involvement in the strikes between 2015 and 2016, says he never imagined students would be fighting for the same cause in 2021. Protests sparked up at institutions of higher learning in recent weeks, with the same demands of free education and an end to financial exclusion.
Students are also calling for the scrapping of historical debt and outstanding fees.
The Durban University of Technology cum laude graduate is currently serving the final year of his three-year house arrest sentence, after being convicted in 2018 on charges of public violence, failing to comply with a police instruction and being in possession of a dangerous weapon.
In January 2019, Khanyile was sentenced to three years house arrest, a R5 000 fine and monthly community service, along with a spate of other strict conditions, after having spent 150 days in prison prior to his release on bail in 2017.
Khanyile was one of the several delegates who sat down for tea with former president Jacob Zuma at his Nkandla home in KwaZulu-Natal last month.
Talking about an array of issues, such as Zuma’s defiance of the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, politics, and higher education, the former president expressed pride in the student movement, he said.
“He has stated very frankly and openly that he is proud of the fight I waged in the Fees Must Fall campaign and the realisation of free education,” he said.
“He admitted that it was also due to how we pushed the struggle that he even saw that this thing had to be realised and he had to implement it. He was very proud of us and gave us unwavering support.”
And now, as students of 2021 find themselves back where Khanyile was six years ago, he has questioned whether the problem lies with those in power.
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Zuma declared that higher education would be free, before passing the baton to his successor Cyril Ramaphosa during the 2017 ANC elective conference.
Soon thereafter, more than R57 billion was allocated to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (Nsfas) to fund the new plan, but in his recent budget speech, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni announced a slashed budget towards higher education.
This has perplexed Khanyile, who said he never imagined students would still be fighting for free education.
“Zuma gave us free education in 2017 and pronounced it and left it to the incoming government. But the incumbent is reversing all of our hard work of the struggle. We are even far back from where we started. I never imagined that in 2021, we are fighting the same thing we fought for in 2015.”
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Nsfas would no longer be paying for certain qualifications for new students, many secondary and post-graduate qualifications as of this year. Khanyile sees this as a betrayal of the promises made during the initial Fees Must Fall movement.
“We are actually back to where we started. We fought and we achieved some gains, but the current government is trying hard to roll back those achievements. I predict in the next four to five years, the same struggle is going to be fought. We are not going to solve it now. The language of free education is dying and all campuses are now solving their own individual problems.”
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