Francesca Villette
STUDENTS preparing for their tertiary studies this year are doing so during exceptionally testing times, according to UWC vice-chancellor Tyrone Pretorius.
“Times when change is everywhere, change is persistent, change is unsettling and very, very fast. The old ways of knowing and understanding are being contested and reinterpreted. As such, these are also times of great opportunity and of immense risk,” he said yesterday as he welcomed thousands of anxious first-year students to the start of the academic year.
Around 22 000 students have registered at UWC and about 5 000 are first-year applicants. Pretorius said that of the country’s 1.2 million pupils who started Grade 1 in 2003, only 550 000 had made it to matric. Of that figure, 11 percent had passed with entry to a bachelor degree.
“You are also one out of every 10 applicants who have been selected to join this university. For 2015 we received 40 000 applications for 4 000 available places.
“It means that for every 10 applicants, nine received regret letters. Every one of you that has been selected has stood out, and every one of you has great potential,” Pretorius told about 3 000 students at the orientation.
Helping students who were struggling or unable to pay their fees was a priority of the university, he said.
Protests had broken out at a number of universities at the start of last year, when the Department of Higher Education and Training announced that the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) was facing a crippling shortage of funds.
The NSFAS had allocated R64 million to UWC, but student applications required an additional R11m. A fee protest at the university had turned ugly and 20 students were arrested.
“Student funding is in a dire state. The NSFAS money is simply not enough. But we are sensitive to this and we are doing all we can to make provision for students who are struggling,” Pretorius said.
But the event was not all doom and gloom for the students.
Pretorius lauded the university’s status as the seventh best university in Africa and it being recognised internationally as a leader in public health.
UWC’s dentistry faculty is the largest in Africa, producing almost half of all dentists in South Africa, Pretorius said.
Premier Helen Zille’s office has reminded matriculants that there are only eight days left to apply for the Premier’s Advancement of Youth project starting in April.
The project provides matriculants with the opportunity to gain workplace experience in the Western Cape government.
Applicants can submit their applications online at www.westerncape.gov.za/pay or call 021 483 0743/4.