South African universities get an extra $1.2 billion to improve student enrollment

Students at South African universities and higher education institutions will receive an extra 17 billion rand ($1.2 billion) over the next three years, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Wednesday. The government of Africa's most industrilised country is under pressure to improve access to education following the protests that have disrupted learning at various campuses but has said in response to the protests that it could not allocate extra funds to education at the expense of health or housing. Weeks of demonstrations calling for the scrapping of university fees, prohibitive for many black students, have highlighted frustration at enduring inequalities in South Africa more than two decades after the end of white minority rule.

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