Africa-Press – South-Africa. DURBAN – The University of KwaZulu-Natal student leadership has called on all students who are unable to register due to historical debt, to return to the university immediately for a mass protest.
The call was made in a post that circulated on social media platforms yesterday.
The Student Representative Council (SRC) said they believed that the university was not taking them seriously when they raised concerns about the matter.
Yesterday morning, a group of students gathered at UKZN’s Westville Campus where they allegedly blockaded the main entrance and exit of the institution.
The crowd that had gathered at the gates was dispersed by the university’s private security officers together with law enforcement agencies.
The SRC said yesterday that they would continue with their protest action.
“We have exhausted all our efforts in making the university management collaborate in helping our students. However, it’s clear that the university wants to financially exclude them.
“We saw the post on social media, and now it’s clear that the students are also mobilising themselves and demanding to come back, and we have no choice but to support them,” said SRC president, Siyabonga Nkambako.
The university had instructed students to pay 15% of their historic debt before they would be cleared for this year’s registration.
Last year, buildings, vehicles and other university facilities were set alight allegedly by the disgruntled students after the university locked horns with students over the historical debt payment.
Nkambako said that this year’s demonstrations would not be violent, and they would make sure that students behaved.
“We are totally against violence and burning university belongings. If there are people who engage in such, we urge law enforcement to take its cause. What happened last year really deteriorated the image of the institution, and we do not want that,” he said.
Nkambako said their engagement with the university had reached a deadlock.
He said that as part of the solution, the SRC has raised more than R2.2 million to help with the payment of historical debt.
UKZN’s acting Executive Director of Corporate Relations, Normah Zondo, issued a stern warning to protesting students.
Zondo said that apart from breaching the good faith approach management has shown the student leaders, the spreading of false news regarding students return to campus was a clear attempt by some protesters to boost their numbers.
She said that the management had considered and conceded to most of the issues, but could not afford any further financial concessions as it would jeopardise the sustainability of the institution even further.
“UKZN has the highest student debt of all public universities in the country, while payments required towards student debt remain among the lowest. Notably, because most universities require their students to settle their debt in full before registration,” she said.
According to Zondo, UKZN’s student debt figures are staggering.
Last year, the university reported that the student debt of all South African public universities amounted to R9 billion.
“UKZN’s current student debt of R1,6 billion as of 31 December 2020, equates to 18% of the total student debt for the universities sector and is among the highest of all the country’s public universities,” said Zondo.
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The Mercury
