Moseneke, Zuma meet over fees crisis

Former deputy chief justice and University of the Witwatersrand chancellor Dikgang Moseneke has told President Jacob Zuma of his intention to convene a meeting of civil society organisations, in a bid to urgently resolve the higher education crisis.

Moseneke, who wants to convene a meeting of civil society organisations, to which government would be invited, met Zuma in Pretoria last Sunday.

Presenting Zuma with a paper he’d delivered at Unisa, titled Is the Claim That University Fees Must Fall at Odds with the Democratic Project?, he said the government must provide increasing access to higher education and must fund it, by reorganising and reprioritising.

In this paper, he praised the demand for free access to higher education. But he argued that this entitlement has limits, adding that “the violence that has reared its head, connected to the demands that fees must fall, is wholly unacceptable and should stop immediately”.

Moseneke told the Mail & Guardian the meeting of civil society organisations must be convened soon “to confront the demand that there must be free access to higher education and to map out the way forward in the medium and long term.

“The government, being conflicted, cannot be the convenor; civil society would be that convenor.”

He said stakeholders included students and their parents, alumni, university executives and management. “We want all of them together in the same place but not in a topdown arrangement.”

Zuma’s spokesperson, Bongani Ngqulunga, said Zuma asked Moseneke to put his proposed solutions on paper, which they will discuss soon.