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Johannesburg – University of the Free State Vice Chancellor Jonathan Jansen is on a mission to raise R100m in bursaries for 1 000 students, he said in Johannesburg on Thursday.
“We embarked on a student university fund campaign were I am going around the country and some parts of the world, to say to people the future of South Africa’s economy, youth and development is at stake,” he told News24 on the sidelines of a dinner in Fourways.
The institution had decided to double its efforts in raising student funding since last year’s protests against proposed hikes to university tuition fees.
Jansen said they had already raised a substantial amount from alumni and staff and that he hoped the dinner he was hosting with Johannesburg’s elite would help his cause.
Use interest to help students
Jansen said the university would only use the interest on the R100m to help students.
“We set an ambitious target of R100m that will go into an endowment. This means we don’t spend the money, but we use the interest.”
Students began protesting in mid-October 2015 in response to an announcement of double-digit fee increases at universities.
Protests started at the Wits University and spread to the University of Cape Town and Rhodes University, and then other tertiary institutions across the country.
Later that month, President Jacob Zuma announced there would be a no increases fees in 2016.
