UNIVERSITIES that have been hard hit by the fee increase protests were desperate to re-open today and salvage this year’s academic programmes but students seem to be in an uncompromising mood.
The universities of Wits, Johannesburg and Cape Town said they expected to resume their academic activities today. The universities of KwaZulu-Natal and Zululand, as well as the Durban University of Technology indicated that they expected to continue with their academic programmes today. Wits has said it would re-open today with beefed-up security measures while the University of Johannesburg (UJ) has also said it would remain open. The Wits senate has approved a revised calendar for 2016 and developed contingency plans to ensure that examinations are written.
Wits appealed to the university community to work together to ensure the resumption of classes so that exams could take place.
“We are completely opposed to the intimidation of staff or students or the disruption of academic activities. Any person/s intimidating students to leave a classroom or building, or disrupting any university activity, may be suspended... Any person using items to deliberately conceal their identity, may be suspended,” Wits said.
Wits spokeswoman Shirona Patel said they were committed to completing the academic year and, as long as no lives were at risk, classes would resume.
“Rigorous control of access to the university, including comprehensive and sporadic checks of all vehicles, including buses, will be implemented. All staff and students will be required to carry their access cards with them, as is the norm.”
On Friday, Wits postponed a planned general assembly, saying they could not guarantee the safety of the executive committee members.
But the Wits student representative council plans to continue voicing its objections to the reopening of the university. Student leader Mcebo Dlamini accused Wits management of draconian behaviour and negotiating in bad faith.
“We extended a hand to the university on Friday, saying we are willing to negotiate… They released a statement spitting in our faces.”
He said the student leadership was willing to discuss internal issues, such as extending the exam timetable.
Brigadier Sally de Beer confirmed that the SAPS would deploy police at the campuses when necessary as they had been doing until now.
Meanwhile, KwaZulu-Natal ANC MPL and party provincial executive committee member Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu said yesterday that the countrywide #FeesMustFall protests were a result of the “west” resisting regime change in South Africa through a local version of the Arab Spring.
“How do you say you want free education, yet you go and burn a library? It clearly tells you we have been infiltrated,” she said, addressing eThekwini ANC delegates during the region’s lekgotla at an uMhlanga hotel. “The revolution has been taken over,” she said. – Additional reporting by Sihle Manda and Kerushun Pillay