Johannesburg – The Minister of Higher Education and Training, Blade Nzimande, will meet Police Minister Nathi Nhleko and acting national police commissioner Khomotso Phahlane on Monday at the University of Witwatersrand to discuss the role of police in protecting universities.
Department of higher education and training spokesperson Kwaye Nkwanyana said: “The meeting will be based on police’s role in protecting university property during student protests, their role in preventing violent protests and racial confrontation that has now emerged during strikes”.
The meeting comes in the wake of several student protests, some of them violent, at state universities around the country, where property has been destroyed. A bus and building were torched in separate incidents causing damages estimated to run into millions of rand.
Nzimande and Nhleko will discuss “stronger measures to address the students’ violent protests and the continued damage to property”.
Later on Monday, Nzimande is scheduled to meet the Transformation Oversight Committee that advises him on transformation issues, the ministry said.
On Wednesday, Nzimande would meet the Education Alliance to take forward the engagement he had with them with regard to their role in stabilising and bringing order to universities.
“On Thursday, a meeting with vice chancellors and later with all Students’ Representative Councils (SRCs) is scheduled,” the department said.
Meanwhile, the Economic Freedom Fighter’s Student Command at the University of Pretoria said it would continue its #AfrikaansMustFall campaign.
They are demanding the scrapping of Afrikaans as a medium of teaching and learning.
Students have engaged in violent clashes over the matter and as a result the institution has suspended lectures.
African News Agency