{"id":28778,"date":"2016-09-21T02:56:25","date_gmt":"2016-09-21T02:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/south-african-police-clash-with-students-over\/"},"modified":"2016-09-21T02:56:01","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T02:56:01","slug":"south-african-police-clash-with-students-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/south-african-police-clash-with-students-over\/","title":{"rendered":"South African police clash with students over fees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{South African police have fired stun grenades and arrested 31 students in Johannesburg, as a wave of protests hit universities across the country.}<\/p>\n<p>Students are demanding free education and denounced government plans to raise tuition fees by up to 8% in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Fees had been frozen last year after the biggest student protests since the end of apartheid in 1994.<\/p>\n<p>The demonstrators say price increases discriminate against black students with low family incomes.<\/p>\n<p>The prestigious University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg has been a focal point of protests.<\/p>\n<p>It said about 200 students in &#8220;roving groups are moving from campus to campus disrupting classes&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The University of Bloemfontein and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in the coastal city of Port Elizabeth said they had closed campuses because of the protests.<\/p>\n<p>The University of Cape Town announced the suspension of classes as students sang revolutionary songs barricaded entrances with litter bins.<\/p>\n<p>University of Witwatersrand Students&#8217; Representative Council leader Nompendulo Mkatshwa police fired stun grenades at students who had gathered near the university to protest against the proposed fee increase.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Students are not happy with what the Department of Higher Education and Training said, so they are fighting for equal education,&#8221; Ms Mkatshwa is quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.<\/p>\n<p>Police spokesman Lungelo Dlamini said the arrested students &#8220;were blocking the entrance of the university in contravention of the court order&#8221; and were being held at a nearby station, Reuters reports.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, South Africa&#8217;s President Jacob Zuma froze student fees for 2016 following the worst student protests to hit South Africa since minority rule ended more than 20 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>The freeze has now been lifted, with Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande announcing on Monday that universities will be allowed to increase fees by a maximum of 8%.<\/p>\n<p>Critics say this is higher than the 6% inflation rate, and will make university education unaffordable for many students.<\/p>\n<p>However, universities favour an increase, saying they were facing a financial crisis which was damaging their academic programmes.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-15141 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_91313152_students2.jpg\" alt=\"Students say that cannot afford to pay higher fees\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{South African police have fired stun grenades and arrested 31 students in Johannesburg, as a wave of protests hit universities across the country.} Students are demanding free education and denounced government plans to raise tuition fees by up to 8% in 2017. Fees had been frozen last year after the biggest student protests since the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-28778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28778"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=28778"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=28778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}