Financial exclusion, accommodation allowance limits, non-payment of books and food allowances are at the centre of protests at the University of the Witwatersrand, which students have vowed will continue until an agreement is reached.
While lectures were going on as normal for some students at the university, hundreds of other frustrated students who cannot register because they owe fees; or have no accommodation, or have not received allowances for books put the university management and businesses in Braamfontein, Johannesburg on a knife edge.
Businesses shut doors as the students singing protest songs passed through the main streets around the university on Thursday to demand that management make some concessions to allow them to register; and for National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) to increase accommodation allowances and pay out food and book allowances.
Rubbish from the bins was also strewn on the streets.
Philangezwi Mbatha, a third-year Bachelor of Education student and a member of education school council, said privileged students were in lecture halls learning while poor students were protesting on the streets.
“Privileged students have access to education while poor students continue to be denied access to higher education,” she said.
Mbatha, who is also a Student Representative Council (SRC) sub-committee member, explained further: “The SRC has been having numerous engagements with the university’s management to allow students to register if they owe R150 000 or less.
“The management didn’t agree to this, saying the university has a ‘hardship fund’, but the fund is not accessible to all, because students have to meet certain criteria to qualify for the fund.
“The SRC then raised funds to enable students to register, but that money has been depleted.
“A lot of students will not be able to register if we do not take this drastic action. Students are sleeping in libraries and labs and they do not know where they will get their next meal, because their allowances have not kicked in.
“NSFAS has capped their allowances and accommodation money to R45 000 while there are no Wits residences that are under R60 000.
“The management of the university has given campus control an instruction that if they find a student in a library, they are supposed to escort them out.
“Students in this prestigious university are expected to sleep on the streets and then go to class [the next day] like everything is normal.
“As student representatives, we are not going to allow that. We are not going to be intimidated by university management.”
Friends and second-year civil engineering students Tshepang Mafemane and Eric Ngoma, who joined the protest just after lunch as it made its way to the Great Hall, told Sunday World that though they do not have any of the challenges that their compatriots are fighting for, their friend Hlaulani Baloyi had to leave Wits for North West University (NWU) because of student debt.
Karabo Matloga, an SRC leader, said their office is inundated with students who do not have accommodation.
“We have students who sleep in the SRC office. We are the first port of call for students with any challenge they have on campus, but we are not able to assist all those in need,” he said.
Matloga added that he fears for the safety of students who are kicked out of libraries and laboratories, because it is not safe on the streets.
“We have students who are saying they are sleeping in shelters,” he said.
“The university insisted that all students must return to campus and yet there’s not enough beds to accommodate all the students.
“Last year with online classes, the pressure on accommodation was alleviated because some students went back home and studied online.”
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