JOHANNESBURG (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th March, 2021) South Africa's ruling African National Congress promised Thursday to find a solution to prohibitive higher education costs after a student protest demanding fees to be scrapped turned out deadly.
Students of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg marched to the ANC head office in hundreds to give a list of demands to the party's secretary general, Ace Magashule, a day after a passerby was killed in clashes with police near the campus.
"The ANC is painfully aware of challenges that confront students in our institutions of higher learning regarding funding and is determined to act decisively in finding a long lasting sustainable solution," the party said in a statement.
It promised to seek support from other parties for a motion to review budget priorities for opportunities to redirect funding to cash-strapped institutions of higher learning.
More than a hundred protesters rallied outside the university on Wednesday to demand that the administration sign them up for the next academic year despite outstanding tuition debt. The university said it was already billions of rands in arrears.
