Mpumalanga students torch car in protest
According to the SRC chairman, the students demanded that the campus enroll more students.
The vehicle that was torched by Ehlanzeni TVET College: Barberton Campus students.
Students on the Barberton Campus of Ehlanzeni Technical Vocational Education Training College embarked on a violent protest, torching a vehicle in the process.
The demonstration started last week Monday and continued until Friday, Barberton Times reports.
The angry students caused a traffic jam last Thursday night after they blocked the main road leading to town.
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It is alleged that the illegal protest spiralled out of control last Thursday evening, as the irate students also torched a vehicle and destroyed private property.
According to student representative council chairman Lwazi Shongwe, the students demanded that the campus enroll more students.
He said that in June last year they had a meeting with campus management, in which they agreed to not take in any new students.
“Due to lack of classrooms, we gave the management time to at least try and add more, even temporary structures. The agreement we reached was that this year the campus will enroll 200 more students per programme. We were surprised when they told us that they will only manage to enroll 30,” said Shongwe.
Shongwe said the students vowed to block entry to the campus until their demands were met.
“Here we have students who are coming from outside of Barberton. They are using money to come here. And every time they come here, they are turned away. Barberton has five high schools.
“If the management say they can only enroll 30 students, where the rest will go to?” asked Shongwe.
Efforts to contact college management for a comment were unsuccessful.
The strike was resolved on Monday afternoon, 29 January.
According to Shongwe, they reached an agreement with college management that they will enroll more students.
“For the financial and public management programmes, we agreed that they will take 200 per programme. For engineering studies, they will enrol 120 and for the national certificate vocational programmes they will take 200 per course,” said Shongwe.
The college was expected to start enrolling students on Tuesday.
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