The South African Police Services (SAPS) will be maintaining a strong presence in the Braamfontein area, Johannesburg, this evening after a SAPS vehicle and a Rea Vaya bus were torched tonight following protests… adding further costs to SAPS which revealed today that it has already spent over R3-million for overtime work, since the university fee protests […]

The polarising effects of #FeesMustFall are now pervasive in the academy, and probably beyond. Academics turn on each other, as do their schools and faculties. Whole universities are pitted against one another – the “Wits option” vs the “UCT option”. Some academics are accused of being blindly supportive of “the innocent students” and parading their […]

JOHANNESBURG – University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) workers and students sang ‘Voetsek’ outside Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court Wednesday morning, after police asked them to move. The scene came following the denial of bail for Wits University SRC leader Mcebo Dlamini (32). Watch below. Dlamini, one of the #FeesMustFall leaders, was arrested on Sunday morning – at a Wits […]

Last week Western Cape photographer JUSTIN SULLIVAN reported on a beautiful and peaceful candlelit vigil at CPUT (Cape Peninsula University of Technology). Today he witnessed the contrast. An outbreak of violence at the University of Cape Town (UCT). “It was terrible to see violence erupt on UCT Campus this afternoon,” he says, “especially after my previous […]

PRETORIA – South African Police Services (SAPS) say they have arrested 567 persons in 265 cases relating to the student protests over fees at the country’s institutions of higher learning and training. SAPS acting National Commissioner General Kgomotso Phahlane said at a briefing in Pretoria on Monday the arrests were made from 1 February 2016 to […]

At about 6:30am Monday morning about 30 student protesters blocked Baxter Road outside the University of Cape Town’s Tugwell and Leo Marquard residences. This is the main stop of the university’s shuttle service. The protesters eventually swelled to about a hundred people. At times private security moved the protesters out the road, but the protesters […]

At a time when decolonisation, part of which involves changing the content of what’s taught, is dominating debate at many universities, the discipline of mathematics presents an interesting case. But it’s not obvious how mathematics can be decolonised at the level of content. This means that those within the discipline must consider other aspects: curriculum processes, […]

Social media and mainstream media have been quick to post images and videos of fires being set and violence being perpetrated during South African student protests… but where were these reporters on Wednesday night when the flames that burnt were from a candlelit vigil and the gathering was beautiful and peaceful? Photographer JUSTIN SULLIVAN offers his views… […]

JOHANNESBURG – Photos of a Catholic Priest in Braamfontein, with blood streaming down his face, went viral today on social media. He had been hit by a rubber bullet during #FeesMustFall protests. Police claimed it was a stray bullet. Hylton White, a Faculty Member at Wits University, was there just before it happened… White wrote on Monday […]

Social media users are calling on fellow South Africans to share the following letter, sent by an academic at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) – Dr Kelly Gillespie – to South Africa’s Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan at 6.40pm Monday night… Dear Mr Pravin Gordhan I wonder if you have any sense of what my […]

PRETORIA – Acting National Commissioner Lieutenant General Khomotso Phahlane said Monday that despite “intimidation” from protesting university students, police across the country will continue to do their duties wherever needed, and that South Africa was “far from a state of emergency” regardless of the rolling protests at universities, that have in recent days turned violent… including a […]

Academic studies resumed at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) this morning… but protesting students have continued to disrupt classes. In local reports, four students have so far been arrested Monday morning – see video below. Students are currently being arrested by Barratt lecture venue #UCKAR #FeesMustFall2016 pic.twitter.com/XnexYvTrtO — #ReActivated (@ActivateOnline) October 10, 2016 #Wits students moving […]

As South Africa faces a crisis in its universities – with protests having raged across the country since the Minister of Education announced ‘varsities could increase their fees by up to 8% – President Zuma has called on the parents of protesting students to get involved. One mother – ANGELA CARR LAMBSON – has heeded the […]

In a week in which Professor Jonathan Jansen described the current protests at campuses around South Africa as a “tragic movie [that] does not end well”, the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) has invited all students, staff and alumni to attend a General Assembly on Friday 7 October from 11:00 to 12:30. Wits said: “It is […]

Although South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma has called for unity in addressing the current university fees crisis in South Africa, which has seen student protests raging on campuses around the country, his words appear to have distanced students even further… with many on Twitter calling his speech a “fail” and “empty”, displaying “no leadership”. Speaking […]

A 26-year-old Western Cape man’s rant about the #FeesMustFall movement has gone totally viral! In less than 9 hours it had already been shared over 22,000 times! Watch below as Josh Drizzy Bergh from Touwsrivier, and now living in Cape Town according to his Facebook page, tells the student protesters who’ve been violent what he […]

I’ve stripped my moer for these blooming students now! Hear ye! Hear ye! This is the most important paragraph of this whole piece: The Government does not have any money! Not a single cent. It gets all its money from taxpayers! So when you are asking the ‘government’ for ‘Free’ education, you are asking ME, […]

South Africa’s Minister of Higher Education and Training Dr Blade Nzimande has announced it is up to the country’s universities to “individually…determine the level of (fee) increase that their institutions require…”. But he cautioned that no university’s fees should be raised by more than 8% for 2017. This follows a blanket freeze on fees in […]

An inspiring Grade 10 learner from Cape Town, South Africa, who gave up his July vacation to mentor learners at an underprivileged school in the former Transkei, has been recognised for his selfless act and awarded the Lead SA Youth Hero for August 2016. Anees Hassan and six fellow SACS High scholars gave up their vacation to mentor […]

From slavery to colonialism and school rules: a history of myths about black hair… “Your hair feels like pubic hair.” That was one of the first insults that someone hurled at my hair. She was a junior at my school. She would touch my hair and repeat this sentence to all present. I had to […]

A 16-year-old South African teenager could hold the solution to the country’s water woes… using just orange and avocado peels! Kiara Nirghin, who is from Johannesburg, has won the Google Science Fair Community Impact Award in the Africa/Middle East region with her entry, “No More Thirsty Crops”. She is also one of the 16 global […]

Dear university students, It seems like the world is in a frenzy of voting right now, from the recent vote in Britain) to exit the European Union to the US choosing its next president – who may be a former reality TV star. Closer to home, there’s a vote coming up to select the new […]

JOHANNESBURG – Facebook Connectivity Lab has announced its first full-scale test flight of Aquila – a high-altitude unmanned aircraft – that should bring affordable internet to remote locations in Facebook’s efforts  to bring internet connectivity to the four billion people around the world who are not yet online. Their goal? To contribute to prosperity, progress and development around the globe. The test […]

The founder of Steve Jobs Schools (SJS) – Dutch market researcher and entrepreneur Maurice de Hond – wants to use the creative philosophies that have made Apple one of the most innovative and successful companies in the world, to revolutionise the traditional method of classroom teaching… through embracing technology to give students the freedom to […]

Almost 360 pupils from a high school in Joburg’s Alexandra township that has achieved a high matric pass rate for two years running have received bicycles as part of a project to expand the mobility – and thus the productivity – of ordinary South Africans. The township was identified for the Urban Scholar Bicycle project because of the transport […]