In the past year, students around the world have resorted to the use of protests to force changes in their institutions. From South Africa, to America, to India, students are speaking out; about racism, the cost of tuition, discrimination, exploitation and various conditions, which directly impact their ability to fulfill their objective- learn, engage, and transform. But while some protests are largely successful, with widespread media attention, there are student protests in some countries that haven’t been as ‘shareable’ and by extension successful. This begs the question- why?

America

The United States has just witnessed a wave of student protest that could, to an extent, be deemed successful. The series of protests which took place at the University of Missouri challenged the school administration’s poor management in dealing with issues of race and inclusion. The protests which spanned a period of two months finally resulted in the resignation of the school’s president and chancellor.

In a Facebook post that went viral two months ago, Payton Head, the student government president of the University of Missouri, complained of bigotry, anti-gay and anti-transgender sentiment that existed around the college campus. According to him, he had experienced discrimination at the university which has made him feel uncomfortable. In response to the post, the schools Chancellor, Bowen Loftin called such sentiments “totally unacceptable,” but did nothing about it.

The negligence of the school authority angered the students and prompted the first protest on the 24^th of September, tagged “Racism Lives Here.” After a week of silence from the school’s authority, a second “Racism Lives Here” protest occurred on the 1^st of October with about 50 participants chanting “White silence is violence, no justice no peace.”

On the fourth of October, 2015, a drunk white student interrupted a gathering of black students, when asked to leave, he referred to them as “niggers”. The incident sparked further uproar; the group reportedly said they that they were made victims of blatant racism in a place they should be made to feel safe. This time, Missouri Chancellor Loftin responded with a recorded video message saying, “Racism is clearly alive at Missouri, and that all prejudice is heinous and damaging to Mizzou. Adding that every member of the community must help the culture. He then orders diversity and inclusion training for students and faculty in 2016.

With the emergence of several other incidences and very little done to tackle them, a student leader named Jonathan Butler went on a hunger strike, vowing not to eat until the school’s president, Tim Wolfe, resigned. His reasons were that the president had ample opportunity to implement policies that could shift the culture of Mizzou in the right direction but failed to do so. The student’s unrest reached a high when members of the school’s football team refused to practice and play until Wolfe is fired. Two days later, on the 9^th of November, both the embattled president Wolfe and chancellor Loftin quit.

Protesters say though the resignation of the school’s leadership doesn’t go far enough to knock down a culture that entertained racism on campus, it was a step in the right direction. The group, Concerned Student 1950, declared its commitment to seeing more changes take place in the university and have demanded to speak with the state governor Jay Nixon.

South Africa

Last month, in an unprecedented move of student activism, university students in South Africa made international headlines for the #FeesMustFall protest. The protests which highlighted issues of inequality and governments poor investment in education culminated in a march on SA’s historic Union Buildings, the seat of the South African government on Friday the 23^rd of October.

On Monday 19 October, students of the University of Witwatersrand (Wits), University of Cape Town, and Rhodes University, shut down their schools in protest against a proposed 10 – 12 percent increase in tuition fees slated to commence in 2016. The protest which originally started at Wits, quickly spread to other institutions as students argued that the decision would favour white students thereby reducing the number of indigenous South Africans in universities.

The University of Wits came out to justify its intent of a tuition fee increase stating that the South African government had reduced funding to universities, therefore, a fee hike was a for the school to cut back. University funding in SA is less than one percent of the country’s GDP; government funding to universities have been static even as tuition fees increase over the years.

The students also demanded a decolonization and democratization of SA’s higher education owing to the contrast in black-white representation in tertiary institutions. In 2012, white academics made up 53 percent of permanent academic staff in universities, this, in comparison to the fact that whites make up only eight percent of SA’s population is enough for a protest. In 2014, university participation for black South Africans ages 18 to 29 increased by a meagre 0.6 percent from 2.8 percent in 2002 to 3.4 percent. Meanwhile, whites of the same age range had a participation of 15.6 percent in 2002 to 23.3 percent in 2014.

After a week’s protest, the students won their demand of a 0% increase in tuition fees. President Jacob Zuma agreed to freeze tuition fees at the nation’s public universities, conceding to the students’ protests. Though the fight for equality and a better education system is far from over, South African students won their first battle towards change.

Nigeria

Over the years, there have been series of protests by university students in Nigeria which received little or no attention from the local media, much less made international headlines. Last month, the students of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, LAUTECH in Oyo State, shut down the institution in protest of the poor state of security provide by the institution. The students who have experienced weeks of continuous robbery and rape, decided they had enough after robbers stormed hostels for what is allegedly the 50^th time in three months. Students reportedly said that earlier reports to the school authorities yielded no result as the school claimed it could do nothing outside of its vicinity. It’s been four weeks since the protest, and nothing more has been heard about it. Did the school management resolve the issue, or did the media fail to follow up?

On Friday 13 November, the students of National Open University put out a petition asking the Federal Government, President Muhammadu Buhari and the new Education Minister, Adamu Adamu, to fire the institution’s top hierarchy over alleged extortion. According to the letter, students allege that the school’s vice chancellor, deputy vice chancellor, the registrar, and other top administrative personnel have conspired to turn the institution into a den of extortion. Some of the issues raised in the letter was the school’s continuous demand for the payment of course materials without providing the materials. The university also charges several compulsory registration fees for final year research projects and Industrial Training. The latter is usually deducted directly from the student portal, while the former has seen an increase from N10, 000 to 15,000 for undergraduate students, and 40,000 for post graduate students in a year.

Another issue raised was the fact that students of the institution have never been mobilized for the National Youth Service, despite a N6000 fee that is demanded of each student for the regularization of NYSC. Students of the institution say they have endured paying several other fees without understanding the rationale behind them. They threatened to protest if the appropriate authorities remain silent on the issue. And so far, they have. Another thing worthy of note is the fact that very few media reported this recent development on the Nigerian education scene.

Similar cases of protests have taken place in the country over the years but there are no recorded successes like in SA and the US. Could it be the due to the poor reportage of the media? Because of the impact they have on the minds of people, the media shoulders an enormous responsibility. It’s an established fact that the media is quite powerful in influencing cultural guidelines and shaping political discourse through agenda-setting and agenda-building. These processes are arguably an unavoidable part of news gathering and reporting by media organizations, determining the level of importance attached to news by the public. Simply put, the media’s agenda becomes the agenda of the public, and shapes the priorities of the government and other policy-makers.

Hence as media organizations consistently reported the protests in America and South Africa, they emphasized their importance thereby forcing the reaction of the government, or as in the case of the Mizzou protest, the resignation of stake holders. Either way, the media caused a response.

While it can be argued that the success of these protests were hinged on media coverage, the students played a major role in determining the level of coverage given by the media.  Their commitment prompted the commitment of the media. In both cases of protests in SA and the US, the students were relentless, consistent, and constantly stepping up the game to show their level of seriousness. In Missouri, the protests went on for weeks, Jonathan Butler went on a hunger strike, and the school’s football team refused to partake in athletic activities. The protests in Pretoria lasted a week, with disrupted lectures, and schools shut down. Things went up a notch when students advanced to the government house ultimately resulting in a violent struggle between them and the police. This rarely happens in Nigeria where protests barely last a whole day. In contrasts to their peers in South Africa and the United States who stick to their guns until a change is manifested, protests by Nigerian students are often characterised with frivolity and are consequently handled with levity by the media and policy makers. The media and the government simply won’ take serious what the students don’t.