Students want clear #FeesMustFall timeline
Student leaders want government to commit to a timeline, stipulating when exactly free higher education will be a reality in the country.
Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande convened a multi-stakeholder Imbizo to seek solutions to the ongoing fee crisis.
Students have also raised issue with a proposal that the army be deployed to campuses.
In recent weeks, violent protests have played out at various institutions, with police and students clashing.
Student leaders told JacarandaFM News that the Imbizo is just another talk shop and part of delaying tactics by government.
They say the conversation should actively move towards free education.
Universities of South Africa Chairperson, Adam Habib said students need to realise that fee free higher education won't happen overnight.
"Protesters have to realise that we cannot achieve social transformation in a single moment. Free education and the poor and the missing middle cannot immediately happen overnight. It has to be part of a process and we need to determine today what that process is. Moreover, we need to say that we do not have to lose the 2016 academic year to advance the struggle for free education," Habib said.
But this view is not finding favour with student leaders.
"Why do we need to hold a meeting to discuss how we are going to implement when you say you have a commission spending tax payers' money? Why are we sitting here? I don't understand how - whatever the resolution this meeting will resolve on - will be implemented by the government if the head of the government is not sitting here," one student said.
"This meeting here today must find how free education is going to be resolved. If you want to know how...I hear [Finance Minister] Pravin Gordhan and Minister Blade say they don't know how to solve this issue. There are students sitting in this meeting who have said 'this is how we are going to achieve free education now'. We are done talking about fee increments," another student said.
As Slindelo Masikane reports, students threatened to halt the meeting when President Jacob Zuma left after addressing stakeholders.