MBOMBELA – Lessons are still at a halt at the University of Mpumalanga.
This comes after students from the institution joined the #FeesMustFall campaign that has taken the country by storm.
Speaking to the president of the student’s representatives council, Thabiso Shongwe the students will not afford the eight percent increase announced by the Minister of Higher Education Blade Nzimande for 2017. He said students want an implementation of zero percent increase with immediate effect.
“We won’t be able to afford the eight percent increase, some of us are still struggling even now as we come from very poor backgrounds. We are in solidarity with those students. Why can’t government cover us up as we are still lesser than most of the institutions,” said Shongwe.
The university has 1 300 students and only a few can afford to pay university fees. Shongwe added that the students need an Intellicard system to allow students to order their meals in advance.
“This will help us save in meal funds, so the balance amount cannot be forfeited if one didn’t use it, we can also use that money to buy stationery. We also need a student portal with immediate effect to enable students to do online applications, check the results while they are home and so on,” he adds. A memorandum with all the students grievances was handed to the varsity’s management on Monday.
Lungelo Malaza, a plant production student at the Mpumalanga campus said they were extremely worried about the fees increment issue. “We are very worried about the fees increase. We have received SMS’s stating that we owe R20 000 to R30 000, to our surprise because NSFAS have responded and told us those funds were paid for and the University’s Financial officer hasn’t said anything about this whole issue,” he said.
On Wednesday morning the university’s communications manager, Mr Themba Manana said management tried to engage with the students and agreed on some of their demands.“We have agreed that the mobile clinic will start operating in January 2017, for now we have arranged with Netcare to be on standby in case of any emergency in the institution. We are also having talks with NSFAS to have clarity on the funds for the students as they are worried about the SMS’s they received. The Intellicard system will be implemented in three weeks time to allow students to buy food outside the school with their cards. We are also looking to the fact that they should buy food that will last them for the whole month. The student portal will be implemented before the end of the year, students will be able to apply and check their results online. We have also increased the library hours as per their request,” said Manana. He further explained that they haven’t discussed the issues of eight percent increase as the university’s council still needs to look into it.
The student continued to block entrances to the university and allowed entrance to staff response for processing their stipends.
Mpumalanga News learnt that things turned violent when police fired rubber bullets to disperse the crowds after the students couldn’t listen to the police to stay out of the road to allow traffic and started throwing stones at police vehicles.
“Rubber bullets were fired after the situation gets out of control on Monday, a similar thing happened on Tuesday when students threw stones at police and passing vehicles. This then forced the police to retaliate by firing rubber bullets to disperse the students,” explained Sgt Gerald Sedibe, provincial police spokesperson. He added that a case of public violence was opened. No arrests were made by Tuesday.
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