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Students in South Africa are threatening to close all the country’s universities as protests over tuition fees spread to more institutions.
Student bodies have rejected a government offer to cap tuition fee increases at 6% for 2016.
Proposed tuition fee hikes of between 10% and 12% have sparked protests at universities across the country.
Protesters have complained that higher fees may exclude poorer black students.
At least 10 institutions have so far been affected with some closing until the situation is resolved.
- BBC Africa Live: News updates
One of the main national student bodies, the South African Students Congress (Sasco), has called for “mass action against fee increments” and a nationwide shutdown of all the country’s tertiary institutions.
Both #NationalShutDown and #FeesMustFall continue to trend on social media in South Africa.
University of Cape Town (UCT) students who were arrested on Tuesday because of the demonstrations have been released, but have to appear in court next week.
Police arrested more than 20 students after they defied a court order, declaring their action unlawful.
BBC correspondents say the protests seem to be intensifying as students refuse to back down, and there is a heavy police presence at most institutions.
Student politics is part of the fibre of South Africa’s politics and the university protests have been likened by some to the 1976 Soweto uprising which saw black students taking to the streets to demonstrate against apartheid education policies.
This is one of the few times in the democratic era where students across the country have united behind one cause, says the BBC’s Pumza Fihlani in Johannesburg.
They are calling for the free education as was promised by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) when it took over power from the apartheid government.
But Education Minister Blade Nzimande has said the government is not able to afford free education for poor students.
Students say the proposed fee hike amounts to discrimination in a country where the average income of black families is far less than that of white families.
Protests began at Johannesburg’s University of Witwatersrand before spreading to the University of Cape Town, Rhodes University, Stellenbosch University, Fort Hare University, the University of the Free State and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, and now students are protesting at the University of Pretoria.
