Disrupting the neoliberal university in South Africa: The #FeesMustFall movement in 2015

Abstract

This article analyses the 2015 student mobilizations in South Africa (SA), which arose in opposition to a 10% hike in tuition fees planned for 2016 at the University of Witwatersrand (WITS) and spurred a massive student reaction across all the universities of the country. After only 10 days of mobilization, the protest, also known as #FeesMustFall by virtue of the most popular Twitter hashtag associated with it, succeeded in halting the hike. How and why did the protesters win? To answer this question, this study combined various qualitative methods of analysis. The author carried out in-depth interviews with all the relevant actors involved in the issue, and analysed documents relating to the movement elaborated by the students in the year of the protest (2015), as well as the main policy documents on higher education in post-apartheid South Africa (1994–2016) released by the government. The author argues that massive and disruptive student protests play a crucial role in ‘young’ democracies, as is the case of today’s South Africa, in which higher education is still considered an important societal issue, and university-level students a legitimate political actor. Where students are perceived as a legitimate element of the political system, it is more likely for them to have an impact on society.