At least three South African universities suspended classes on
Wednesday because of student protests over tuition fees after the
government recommended above-inflation increases for 2017.
Students
demanding free tertiary education marched near Johannesburg’s
University of the Witwatersrand, known as “Wits”, where classes were
called off for the rest of this week.
Academic activities were
also suspended at the University of Pretoria’s main campus, and the
University of Cape Town said it had temporarily suspended classes on
Tuesday and Wednesday.
Demonstrations since 2015 over the cost of
university education, prohibitive for many black students, have
highlighted frustration at the inequalities that persist more than two
decades after the 1994 end of white-minority rule.
The
latest protests were triggered by a government recommendation on Monday
that 2017 tuition fee increases be capped at 8 percent. Inflation
stands at 5.9 percent.
Police spokesman Lungelo Dlamini said 31 students arrested on Tuesday at Wits had been released, but gave no further details.
The
government and the main opposition party have accused students of
turning campuses across the country into battlegrounds and damaging
university property.
Weeks of violent demonstrations last year
forced President Jacob Zuma to rule out fee raises for 2016, but
university authorities have warned that another freeze for the coming
year could damage their academic programmes.