TUT students won’t write exams
Chaos erupted at the Soshanguve campuses with some students demanding exams to be written in January.
Academic activities halted at both Soshanguve north and south campuses.
On Tuesday afternoon students showed their dissatisfaction with a decision taken by management to write their exams this year.
Some students said they were not ready to write exams as: “There is not enough time to prepare,” said Luthando Sikweni.
Sikweni and other students are demanding that exams be written in January.
“We want to sit in for our exams next year, as we have no time left for the current academic year. We are not prepared at all,” said Sikweni.
Sikweni is a second year ICT student at the south campus who had been participating in the #FeesMustFall protests which left the university in a shutdown-mode for almost two weeks earlier last month.
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The protest, which some were against, lead to the death of the student leader and final year ICT student, Benjamin Phehla.
The anti-exams’ students clashed with security officers hired by the university where rubber bullets and water cannons were used to disperse the angry crowd.
Students blockaded Aubrey Matlala Road when they were met with water cannons and rubber bullets fired by police who managed to calm the situation.
“They won’t deter us from fighting for our education,” shouted one student who ran for cover in one of the lecturer rooms at the north campus.
Other students ran to their residences, fearing they might be shot at by the officers.
Students said what angered them was police presence on their campuses.
“How can we study while there is a heavy police presence on our campuses?” asked Mzo Khumalo.
Khumalo said he was against the protests and wanted to finish writing his exams on record time.
ALSO READ:TUT council calls for calm
“I am doing my last year and I want to graduate next year like some of my peers. These protests are not what we need, especially during examinations.
He said the students who did not qualify to sit in for exams were to be blamed.
“They are the ones who are pushing for the protest,” said Khumalo adding that it was not those who were prepared to sit in for their exams who were causing commotion at the campus.
TUT’s spokesperson, Willa de Ruyter, had previously said examinations will be written at the Pretoria events centre (show grounds) from 21 November.
But students told a Rekord reporter that no exams will be written on that day.
“We plan on disrupting those exams. No one will write,” said one student leader who did not want to be named.
ALSO READ: TUT students stand up against burning campus
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