Durban - Lectures at the Durban University of Technology were disrupted on Monday as thousands of students walked off campus over the non-payment of student meal allowances this semester.
At the weekend a graphic calling for #ShutDownDut circulated on social media.
Groups of students dressed in EFF regalia went from classroom to classroom pulling students out of lecture rooms and forcing them to join the protest.
The protesting students are demanding that the meal allowances - known as S-Bux - promised to them be paid. Only some students have been paid their S-Bux this semester.
"We are hungry," a student protestor told the Daily News.
A Daily News photographer and reporter were threatened with violence by protesting students who did not want pictures taken.
Malusi Nxumalo, Acting Dean of students, said the social media message was not an official communique from either DUT Management or the DUT Student Representative Council.
Nxumalo urged students to refrain from disrupting lectures saying they were entering a critical period in the academic calendar.
"There is no permission granted for this gathering and the SRC has made no request for this threatened protest. Therefore, this gathering will be considered illegal," he said.
Nxumalo said the SRC met with DUT Student Services to address outstanding S-Bux related matters on Friday and they had agreed on the path to be followed.
"We have also noted what looks like a statement from the SRC, making all sorts of allegations about a number of things. At this point, we will not reply to that statement as we have not independently verified its origin. There is a second meeting arranged for Monday 17 September 2018, to finalise the approach for assisting students who are still in need of support, after the SRC forwarded their agreement late on Friday afternoon, to go ahead with the relief assistance," he said.
"DUT Management will release a full statement to University stakeholders once we have met with the SRC and we have discussed all of the issues that they will place on the table."