Cape Town – Education MEC Debbie Schäfer has refused to apologise for making false statements on Twitter regarding a student’s acceptance into UCT, with the Good party’s Brett Herron calling her out over race baiting and “conducting herself in bad faith”.
Schäfer took to social media at the weekend to lament an apparent rejection of Paul Roos Gymnasium top 2020 matric pupil Michiel Kühn into UCT, taking from the response on an admission letter, and questioning what it took to be “competitive”.
In the letter the learner is informed that an offer for 2021 cannot be made, as his application was not competitive. It further said offers were made based on merit.
Schäfer received a backlash for her stance, with some users questioning her motive.
UCT reacted shortly afterwards, saying Kühn had received an offer from the university on February 23 but did not accept it.
“The wording in the email was generic for all waitlisted applicants and included that the ‘application is not competitive’. The faculty will review its systems to look into using wording that is applicable to specific applicants and is not generic,” UCT said.
Herron tweeted: “Dear @DebbieSchafer & (another user), you played the race card. The outstanding matriculant couldn’t get into @UCT_news med school because he’s white. Meanwhile the guy was offered a place based on his merit. So did he give you false info? Or you ran with something you didn’t check?”
He said as an MEC Schäfer should “engage honestly with the public and with the tertiary education institutions in our province”.
“She deliberately set out to embarrass UCT by driving a false narrative about student selection that was intended to perpetuate the notion that white students of excellence cannot get into UCT. It’s disgraceful and shameful.”
ANC provincial spokesperson on education Khalid Sayed said instead of fuelling fake outrage against UCT Schäfer had to work on placing 6 594 children still not in school.
Schäfer’s spokesperson, Kerry Mauchline, said the MEC was sent screen grabs by a “black colleague” who had noted the images doing the rounds on social media and was outraged that such good results were not considered “competitive”.
“The minister tweeted a question as to how such results could be considered not to be competitive as stated in the UCT letter. At no point did the minister mention race.
’’She would have asked the same question for any learner who was told their application was ‘not competitive’ despite excellent results. There was no need to clarify the letter with UCT, as it was by their own admission a letter they had sent,” she said.
According to Mauchline, Schäfer was not sorry that she asked the question.
“This elicited a response from UCT who admitted that the letter was misleading and generic, and something they will work to rectify,” said Mauchline.
Cape Times