(De)constructing the #FeesMustFall Campaign in South African Higher Education

Abstract

South Africans live in one of the most unequal societies in the world where squalor and abject poverty live side by side with abundant wealth. The challenge of inequality is captured eloquently in the National Development Plan (NDP), the government’s roadmap of South African economic future. It has become obvious that the new generation of student leadership in South Africa has unleashed a unique opportunity to overhaul and transform the higher education system fundamentally. They are tired of the current system that hangs on the pillars of racism and white supremacy and continues to reproduce inequality in the society. In some ways, the South African higher education system continues to humiliate and take away students’ dignity. Thus, there is still work to be done to ensure the higher education system fully conforms with the objectives of the NDP.