Wits legal

Students’ demands

As we embark on the no registration fee campaign to ensure that the gates of the university are open to all black people. This movement is geared towards the attainment of free education and the immediate implementation of free education in South Africa. Education in this country is reflective of our socio-economic conditions that perpetuate black poverty and exclusion. Black students across universities in South Africa are perpetually financially excluded and locked into debt.

For this reason we are calling for the end of commodifying education. We want the doors of higher learning to be open to every student in South Africa. Access to education must not be based on one’s ability to pay; it must be open to all! We do not want ‘payment plans’ and ‘student loans’. We want #FreeEducationForAll. We are fighting for the decommodification of education. We are committed to this project and we are not alone! Students from all over the country are calling for #FreeEducationNow. We are saying #AsinaMali. It must be recognised that this year being the 40th anniversary of the 1976 student uprising where young black students challenged the apartheid government and lost their lives, we’re inspired by the undying commitment shown by black martyrs and feel the lives lost should not have been in vain as is the current status quo.

• We demand free education Now

• No registration fee (even where there  is outstanding debt)
• By-elections for SRC (Elections were unconstitutional)
• Historic debt repayment for students who are graduating this year to scrapped in total.  
• Access to academic record whether you are in debt or not.
• Left-over food from all dining halls must be given to poor students and day scholars on campus (inclusive of weekends)
• Suspensions and disciplinary action due to the protest that took place in 2015 should be revoked.
• No Police presence on campus
• African Students (International students) within the border of Africa should not pay an upfront fee payment of 75 percent but rather it should be pushed down to 50 percent.
• Removal of upfront accommodation fee and students should be allowed to move upon registration.
• Returning NSFAS Students in their final year should be given financial aid to complete their academic studies.

We are also stating that the negotiation processes towards the insourcing of university workers must continue in good faith. The task team which was set up in 2015 must not be disrupted and meetings towards the achievement of the insourcing of workers must continue as per plan. We have also towards this end sent a statement to the University Management stating our position on this matter.

Wits Fees Must Fall (FMF) student movement and the ongoing occupation at Solomon Mahlangu House (formerly known as Senate House).

In accordance with the ongoing struggle for free quality education; Wits Fees Must Fall (WitsFMF) recognizes that registration fee and/ or upfront fee payment contributes to the increasing number of students who are denied access to education due to their economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Wits FMF is dedicated to ensuring that historically thus economically disadvantaged students enjoy the same right at equilibrium with the historically privileged. The fact of our impossible reality is that we cannot afford the payment of registration together so with tuition and residence fees. Symbolically so we protest against registrations continuing as normal in accordance with the greater goal that ought to be achieved which is one of attaining free quality education in higher learning institutions in our lifetime. We understand that there is ability for our demands to be met, however for as long as the system continues to be anti-black and anti-poor we will continue to fight. Free education seems impossible; however we staunchly believe that it is only right and just that the struggle continue until the goal of free education is attained.  

The struggle for free education has been met with failure from management to meet our demands, one of them being no registration fee and/or upfront payment the across board. The nine point list of demands was handed over to management in the General Assembly  Secondly and mostly importantly, the university has failed to honor its word in reference to financial exclusions despite promising us on various media platforms about the registration fee and financial exclusion, clearly they think we have amnesia.  

The way we perceive it is that the Wits management offered us an illusion that we are on the same page hence our negotiations are all in good faith. But with the current situation it just confirms our long feared beliefs that we cannot trust such a structure that seeks to further inflict pain on black bodies through institutionalized racism in the form of financial exclusions, a ridiculous upfront fee that only a few can afford while the rest of us have to go to loan sharks in order to make ends meet and plenty other forms of institutionalized racism that excludes us black people.  It this therefore imperative like we did last year when we persisted with in sourcing  and refused to continue to learn before our parents are recognized as human beings not just a mere pawns that can be exploited whenever they feel like it.   Due to the neoliberal nature of contemporary racial capitalism the outsourced workers had no prima facie relationality with the capitalist class as per crude logics of Marxist analysis of class struggles. The nexus of the relationship gave them no political currency under the discourses of trade union economism.

The nine point demands that we submitted to management last year November have thus far being partially met and with the most important points deliberately left dangling, the issue of scrapping the registration fee and financial exclusions still remain unresolved. The Wits Fees Must Fall students’ movement has been in conversation with other varsities who are part of the FMF movement and have thus far established a solid relationship in which at the end of the day we envisage a south Africa with free decolonized education .Our commitment will take us as far as not having an academic year at all until our demands are fully met.

This movement seeks to fight against anti-black practices of the institution in all its forms. We seek to rectify the structural and epistemic violence which has led to the academic and financial exclusion of black students, the exploitation of black workers and the generalized intellectual dishonor of black academics and also bridge the gap between whites and blacks which have been acquired by over 500 years of land dispossession and oppression throughout the world. We also do acknowledge that our struggles, even though geographically separated with our brothers and sisters beyond the shore of our beloved Africa, our struggles against anti-blackness doesn’t exist in isolation and we therefore seek for global solidarity from similar movements around the world like Black Lives Matter and Rhodes must fall Oxford. This leads us to the desire and agency to end life of the University of the Witwatersrand as we know it!

@WitsFMF

FROM FREE EDUCATION TO LAND APPROPRIATION! ALUTA CONTINUA!