VIDEO: Sedibeng College students cause havoc in Vanderbijlpark

VANDERBIJLPARK – Hundreds of Sedibeng TVET College students from Vanderbijlpark Campus stirred chaos and havoc outside Checkers Hyper in the civic center on Monday, February 26.

According to student leaders, the protest aims to highlight the plight of financial corruption, mismanagement, and tender headaches happening in the institution.

Following a picket outside the college, students marched to Checkers Hyper to engage management on their request for temporary employment.

Sedibeng Public Order Police who closely monitored the group of students, dispersed the crowd with teargas, stunt grenades, and rubber bullets.

Sedibeng Regional Secretary of SASCO Nhlanhla Radebe explained why they protested in the civic center.

“We are out in our numbers to expose the corruption happening at the institution perpetuated by the college’s management and its officials. The institution is faced with NFSAS corruption. Students are getting notifications of their tuition funds, however when they go to utilize the monies, they are told at till points that they have insufficient funds,” he said.

Radebe said they have filed a memorandum of grievances with the institution a week ago, and they have not received their response on the issues they raised.

“There is also a delay of textbooks at the institution and some of the students are being abused based on financial exclusion. Those who are self-funded are not treated equally with the NFSAS-funded students. Since the institution failed to respond to our grievances, we are going to continue protesting until the issues are resolved and we are going to write to the Minister of High Education for a swift resolution,” he added.

At the time of publishing this story, Sedibeng College had not responded to inquiries sent to them as a provision for their right to reply.