Original Research

The role of the church in the #FeesMustFall movement in South Africa: Practical Theological reflection

Mookgo S. Kgatle
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies | Vol 74, No 1 | a4814 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v74i1.4814 | © 2018 Mookgo S. Kgatle | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 13 September 2017 | Published: 22 March 2018

About the author(s)

Mookgo S. Kgatle, Department of Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology, University of South Africa, South Africa

Abstract

In 2015 and 2016, South Africa experienced one of the unique student-led protests since the dawn of democracy that touched the world, the #FeesMustFall movement. Out of the many demands that the students made in the movement, one is outstanding, fee-free higher education. A large number of publications have been written on the movement from an economical and educational point of view. Most of these publications argue that a fee-free higher education for all students is not an affordable or sustainable option for South Africa at the moment. What is new in this article is a practical theological reflection on the movement in general and the demand for a fee-free higher education by students in particular. The article looks at the possibilities of fee-free higher education for the poor students in South Africa by exploring the roles of the church in the #FeesMustFall movement.

Keywords

#FeesMustFall; free higher education; students; theology; church

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