The 2016 student protests during the Fees Must Fall movement have the youth wanting Treasury to put more money into education.

The youth have differing views on where the money should go, but they agree that education should be a priority in Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s Budget Speech on Wednesday afternoon.

Baradi Moletsane from Auckland Park in Johannesburg says she expects Gordhan to put in more money to help those poor households who can’t afford to send their children to tertiary institutions.

“I want to hear how he will be funding both higher and basic education. We know fees must fall was a problem last year, I want him to prioritise funding for NSFAS.”

This comes at the backdrop of news reports that many learners are being turned away by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), even though an amount of R15-billion has been set aside for the scheme to fund its more than 400 000 beneficiaries during the 2017 academic year.