As higher education in Africa is undergoing a fast expansion, student politics is confronted with new realities and undergoes incisive changes. They can be observed in the changing political character of student governments and organizations, the changing role of student representation in the governance of African universities, technological changes that facilitate a changing repertoire of students’ political agency, and a new student political discourse on higher education in Africa and the Global South.

Student politics in Africa has undergone significant transformations in the twenty-first century. The most notable development driving these changes is the massive and rapid expansion of higher education across Africa, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. This expansion has resulted in massification of higher education at institutional and system levels in many countries, accompanied by widespread privatization and differentiation of higher education.

Consequently, student bodies have not only increased in size but also become more diverse and fragmented, with greater access for historically marginalized groups such as women, rural youth, and youth from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. This increase has brought about several challenges, including pressures on infrastructure and staff, resource constraints, and a need for cultural and academic adjustments to accommodate greater diversity.

Student politics in Africa has had to grapple with all these changes, which have necessitated significant student political investment to address old and new inequities. Key issues include access to higher education, student funding and financial aid, housing, teaching and learning, and campus cultures. As a result, students’ self-organization and agency have changed significantly.

To analyze African student politics, I used a conceptual framework initially developed by Philip Altbach in his study of student activism in the twentieth century. Meanwhile, the empirical foundation of this analysis comes from two systematic reviews of scholarly literature on student politics in Africa that I conducted in 2005 and 2022. The two reviews provide the material to synthesize broad continuities and discontinuities in student politics across Africa in the twenty-first century.

Changing National Political Environments and Socioeconomic Development

At the turn of the millennium, African student politics encountered developments that originated from the “second African liberation”: political liberalization, multipartyism, economic growth, and large-scale social changes. In addition, global technological advances, such as the internet and mobile telephony, allowed African societies to leapfrog into the digital age. The past two decades also saw inclusive growth, urbanization, and the expansion of an urban middle class, all impacting higher education significantly.

As the legitimacy of national political systems increased, the role of students as extraparliamentary opposition diminished, integrating politically astute students into national multiparty systems. This integration has had a contradictory impact on African student politics.

Expansion and Institutional Composition of Higher Education

The rapid expansion and massification of higher education in Africa has been accompanied by privatization, with the growth of private higher education providers and increased “private” (self-funded) enrollments in public institutions. A more heterogeneous institutional landscape has emerged: alongside the erstwhile prestigious national universities, private (vocational and religious) colleges, branch campuses of international universities, and new public colleges and polytechnics have mushroomed. This heterogeneity has had varied effects on student politics, often leading to fragmentation in student bodies and student representative structures, and subdued political activity, especially at private institutions.

Transformation and Fragmentation of the Student Population

The expansion of enrollments has therefore had both positive and negative impacts. While addressing inequities such as the gender gap and increasing access for rural and poor youth, it has also led to a divided student experience, particularly between government-funded and privately funded students. This fragmentation has influenced student representation and political activities, with institutions like Makerere University in Uganda seeing structural divisions in student governance. In the South African case, it has been argued that “welfarism” was now a significant factor in student politics, both in terms of the demands students were making and in terms of the clientelist approach university leaders were adopting to quell protests.

Political Character of Student Governments and Organizations

In keeping with a prediction made by Irungu Munene at the turn of the millennium, African student politics changed in the last two decades in three key ways: 1) the reconstitution of the student movement’s role in national politics, 2) increased institutionalized student representation, and 3) the central role of national political parties. Student leaders have inserted themselves in multiparty politics with an eye on resources, networks, and career prospects, while political parties have turned to student leaders for prestige and to recruit a new generation of politicians. The influence of national political parties on student leaders has created numerous challenges for universities and governments, and frequently caused disruptions on university campuses that are unrelated to higher education.

Role of Student Representation in University Governance

Moreover, the emergence of market-oriented universities has not reduced student activism but has changed its nature. On the one hand, student politics has become more partisan and integrated into the national political system. On the other hand, a new consumerist discourse in African higher education has fostered a more individualist and entrepreneurial student identity. The impact of the consumerist discourse on student politics can be understood by juxtaposing the conception of students as “clients” in higher education to earlier conceptions like that of “citizens,” “members of the academic community,” or “stakeholders.” Thus, involvement of students as clients in national politics clearly does not make sense. Meanwhile, students as clients will more readily be included in domains where student representation can lead to better information available to managers to improve organizational performance (e.g., in quality assurance processes). Thus, in addition to the traditional, social justice-oriented student activism, a new form of entrepreneurial activism has emerged whereby each responds differently to the changing higher education landscape.

Technology, Protest Repertoires, and Student Political Agency

One distinctive feature of recent African student politics is the adoption of technology-enhanced protest methods. Movements like Rhodes Must Fall and #FeesMustFall in South Africa exemplify how students have come to use social media platforms to greatly enhance their political agency. The new online-offline dynamic has facilitated a translocality in African student politics not seen since the movements against colonialism and apartheid of the twentieth century. It has resulted in “must fall” demands resonating widely across Africa and beyond, to institutions like University of Oxford and Harvard University.

Changing Student Political Discourse

African students’ new political discourse directly arises from the large-scale changes described above, and diverse students’ experiences of inequity, violence, and injustice. In South Africa, “fallism” became the name for the new student political ideology drawing on Pan-Africanism, Black radical feminism, and Black Consciousness Movement. The contributions that the “fallist” student political discourse has made to higher education may be captured in two concepts: intersectionality and decolonization. It centers student attention on the gendered, racial, classist, spatial, linguistic, and epistemological injustices present in the postcolonial university and society—and thus focuses resistance in practical and theoretical terms. Examples of Africa’s “incomplete decolonization” in higher education are the continued marginalization of African epistemologies and indigenous knowledge systems, and African languages in higher education.

Conclusion

As much as there remain gender gaps, ethnoregional factionalism, and limited activism on broader issues like climate change and poverty, African student politics is and will be a potent force in the twenty-first century. There are strong political cultures, traditions, and organizations within Africa’s student bodies capable of adapting and mobilizing for significant causes even amidst disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic. The resilience and inventiveness of African student politics continues to shape higher education and societal transformation across and beyond the continent.

Thierry M. Luescher is the strategic lead for equitable education at the Human Sciences Research Council, and adjunct professor to the chair of critical studies in higher education transformation at Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa. E-mail: [email protected].