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Eight years into my tertiary education, I can honestly say that I have never taken for granted a single opportunity that I was given.
Looking at the fees must fall protests spreading throughout the country, I cannot even begin to comprehend the self-importance and entitlement that so many of the younger generations feel these days.
How many generations have gone before them, working tirelessly to make ends meet so that they can study part-time?
How many parents have worked multiple jobs to put their children through school?
What makes these younger generations special that they were born with the right to a tertiary education that thousands of others have worked so hard for?
Tertiary education is a privilege and not a right. Born into a family that couldn’t even afford to pay my primary school fees, I remember crying every morning before school because they were threatening to send those with outstanding fees home and I didn’t want to go to school to be embarrassed.
Through hard-work, scholarships, an aunt that work long hours to contribute to my fees and a part time waitron job from grade 10 already, I finally made it through matric-dux of the school and captain of a few first team sports, despite working night shift every single night.
I didn’t think university was going to be a possibility for me until the letter arrived in the post one day telling me that I had received a loan from the university that would cover my fees and most of my residence fees.
I still worked as a waitron in the month-long university holidays and worked as a lab assistant in between classes through the universities work-study program. Lucky enough to get NRF funding for my honours, masters and now my PhD in a science discipline, I will be graduating with my PhD in March 2017 at the age of 26.
The point of this story is that if you have financial need and are prepared to work for what you want, there are support systems in place to assist you in securing a tertiary education. Nothing is free in life and there is no way we can maintain the high standard of education in this country if we do not pay fees.
Yes there is a missing middle class that do not qualify for NSFAS funding, but the government has agreed to support this missing middle with regards to the fee increases. Violent protests are achieving nothing but disruption of classes for those that want to learn and creating more expenses for universities that have to hire extra security and repair damages.
I want to appeal to those that are sitting back and judging the protestors to stand together, show the universities, the public and the government that not everyone expects everything for free and that the majority of us are here to work and want to learn. Let us stop demanding that everything must fall but rather build each other and this beautiful country of ours up.
