Unit 4: Enriching Exchanges (1ère AMC)

#FeesMustFall – South Africa

Culture note :

-The South African Schools Act of 1996 allows for learners from poor families to be exempted from paying school fees. The School Fee Exemption policy says that each school, through its school governing body (SGB), must determine fees and inform parents and caregivers about the exemption policy.

 

-A group of students raised their hands in the air to signal that they have come in peace. #FeesMustFall was a student-led protest movement that began in mid-October 2015 in South Africa. The goals of the movement were to stop increases in student fees as well as to increase government funding of universities.

 

The document under study is a video from TRT World, published in 2016 on their YouTube channel.  It deals with the inequality that existed in the education system of South Africa at the time.

We have learned that apartheid ended in 1994.  Even though South Africa has evolved since the end of apartheid, nevertheless, some inequalities were still present in the country with poverty and discrimination. In fact, the best jobs non-white people could have access to were teaching and nursing. Otherwise, the majority of them were forced to do unskilled menial jobs.

As a consequence, because these poor parents were earning low-incomes, they could not afford to pay the tuition fees for the schools of their children.

(We will continue the study of the document next time. Be ready!)

Homework: Learn the lesson.