The costs of education

in late 2015, the University of the Wit waters rand announced that it was hiking its fees by 10.5% the following year. Wits students protested against the increase following the announcement, marking the inception of the #FeesMustFall movement which rapidly spread to other institutions of higher learning. The protests laid bare a national crisis that had finally come to maturity – the cost of education in South Africa had been proliferating and the peak of persistence had been reached.

At the time of the initial #FMF protests, annual education inflation had been around 6%. In 2021, it is now estimated at 9% per year, according to Sheila-ann Robey, financial adviser at Liberty. That is six percentage points above inflation.

Among the sectors thrown into disarray by the Covid-19 pandemic