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SA president urges stakeholders to end student protests against fee increases

Xinhua, October 4, 2016 Adjust font size:

South Africa's President Jacob Zuma on Monday urged stakeholders to find a lasting solution to the Fees Must Fall campaign.

"This is not the time for grand-standing of one sector portraying itself as being better than others," Zuma said at a meeting in Johannesburg with stakeholders in education, with the aim of ending the ongoing student protests against fee increases.

"It is a period of sound leadership from all of us, to find solutions. We run the risk of a whole academic year being wasted if parents, students, university management and all stakeholders do not act now. That is why this meeting is so important," Zuma said.

The meeting was convened as a new wave of student protests against fee increases hit major universities.

Several universities across the country have been forced to shut down due to the protests.

The president appealed to students not to resort to violence during the protests.

Zuma also expressed outrage at recent violent protests which erupted late last month after Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande announced that universities can raise fees for 2017, provided that it does not exceed eight percent.

"The destruction of university property are shocking criminal acts including the loss of life. This is not the future we want of resorting to violence to communicate what they would like to be done," Zuma said.

The Fees Must Fall campaign should not be hijacked to serve partisan interests, he noted.

At the meeting, Nzimande took a swipe at student leaders accusing them of going back on their word when they disrupted a higher education summit earlier on Monday.

According to Nzimande, student leaders had agreed with the ministry on the resolutions taken for the year 2017.

"We agreed with you, now you come back saying what you are saying. You are not playing a fair game, in the process you are gambling with the future of the majority of students in this country," the minister said. Endit