{"id":101870,"date":"2015-10-22T09:59:59","date_gmt":"2015-10-22T07:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=101870"},"modified":"2015-10-22T11:03:49","modified_gmt":"2015-10-22T09:03:49","slug":"student-protests-is-our-success-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/101870\/student-protests-is-our-success-government\/","title":{"rendered":"Student protest is our success: government"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Instead of feeling hard done by the fact that the #feesmustfall student protesters had disrupted Treasury\u2019s mini budget on Wednesday, Deputy Minister of Finance Mcebisi Jonas said we should feel proud.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking in his office above the sound of protesting students, he told Fin24 that what is happening \u201cin part reflects our success\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s obviously a very unfortunate situation,\u201d Jonas said. \u201cWe could have developed more effective mechanisms of engagement to find more amicable solutions to the issues.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe success that we have had is the success in widening access to education,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Jonas said universities used to be able to handle everybody, but said since 1994 SA has successfully widened access to basic education. \u201cWe are almost close to universal access to education in the country as we speak,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat has its own pressures on our administrative systems of education in general,\u201d said Jonas. \u201cWhat you see is not actually a failure, (but) a reflection of our success in broadening access.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Access puts pressure on infrastructure, resources, systems, he explained. \u201cWe need to quickly shift towards quality and aligning more systems with the labour market and development challenges of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Vr0sG8_TXOs\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande\u2019s 6% university fee cap proposal was rejected by universities across South Africa on Tuesday evening and a country-wide protest saw students break into the parliament precinct in a bid to engage with Nzimande.<\/p>\n<p>However, when Nzimande tried to address the crowd, it was too late. After a battle with stun grenades and an efficient police force, the students had turned their ire from \u201cfees must fall\u201d to \u201cBlade must fall\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe should be proud,\u201d Jonas said. \u201cIt\u2019s engagement with all the issues affecting us. It also opens up another debate about choices we must make as a country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, he said the protest action needed to make way for incisive debate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not a debate that can be resolved by protest,\u201d he said. \u201cWe do need to take this whole thing beyond this protest into a more decent and deeper and more incisive debate about choices that we need to make as a country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe debate about education is an important one,\u201d said Jonas.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fin24.com\/Budget\/WATCH-Student-protest-reflect-govt-success-says-Nenes-deputy-20151021\" target=\"_blank\">News24<\/a><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on education in SA<\/h3>\n<p><a title=\"How funding for university students has dwindled in South Africa\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/101776\/how-funding-for-university-students-has-dwindled-in-south-africa\/\" rel=\"bookmark\"><strong>How funding for university students has dwindled in South Afric<\/strong>a<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"This is how much money South Africa\u2019s top universities make\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/101734\/this-is-how-much-money-south-africas-top-universities-make\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">This is how much money South Africa\u2019s top universities make<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"What vice-chancellors at South Africa\u2019s top universities earn\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/101654\/what-vice-chancellors-at-south-africas-top-universities-earn\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">What vice-chancellors at South Africa\u2019s top universities earn<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/101412\/here-are-south-africas-26-universities\/\">Here are South Africa\u2019s 26 universities<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Instead of feeling hard done by the fact that the #feesmustfall student protesters had disrupted Treasury\u2019s mini budget on Wednesday, Deputy Minister of Finance Mcebisi Jonas said we should feel proud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":85335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-101870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-active"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101870"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101882,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101870\/revisions\/101882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}