Tag: essa

By Ján Michalko, PhD  This guest blog was written by our Senior Project Ján for Education Sub-Saharan Africa  (ESSA) in August 2020 at the launch of its African Scholarship Hub. Ján reflects on his doctoral fieldwork with university students in South Africa. He highlights the benefits of alumni networks for young women and men, who receive scholarships for their higher education.   It was late 2016 and the calls for university fees ‘to fall’ in South Africa were entering their new peek. University students were once again organising marches and class disruptions. They were building on the discussions and changes they instigated with the Rhodes Must Fall campaign the previous year. Their goal was to shine light on the challenges that many young South Africans, especially racialized as Black/ African, faced in their quest to getting quality education, especially on tertiary levels. One of them was financial exclusion, which persisted despite the provision of national financial assistance and various bursary and scholarship schemes.    …