ABSTRACT
The thunderous 2015 South African (SA) university student protests were not, per se, a revolution; but they will incontrovertibly yield critical institutional transformations, nevertheless, within the broader student-loathed neoliberal political economic framework. The SA higher education and training system too, strongly implicated in the 2015 protests, equally remained largely unbroken in its wholeness. Indeed some aspects began to once again receive some reform as a direct consequence of 2015 protests. There are several intertwined factors that caused the student protests to be impactful. First, the very nature of the student demand of #FeesMustFall and the 'subsequent' simultaneous linking-up of this grievance with worker-centred demands were 'unique'. Second, student protests had an element of novelty. Third, the scale was different. Fourth, the protests produced immediate outcomes and direct effects. In November and December 2010, thousands of students protested in several areas of the United Kingdom, with 30,000–50,000 marching through central London.
