JOHANNESBURG: Protests by students at universities were a sign that the country was gripped by an education crisis, former Wits University Student Representative Council (SRC) president Mcebo Dlamini said yesterday.
“This is now a national crisis… it is not about Wits any ore, government and the private sector will have to intervene,” Dlamini told cheering students gathered inside Senate House on the campus.
The students had expected the institution’s council to give them feedback over their demand to reverse the planned 2016 tuition fee increase.
The council instead issued a statement indicating it would not meet with students, and instructed that the hall be cleared by 3pm.
Dlamini warned that the university would see a total shutdown in the next three days. “Wits cannot afford to shut down for the next three days, that is what we are going to do until our grieviences are met… The university is refusing to speak to us. They will resort to court orders but we say no to a fee increase.”
Wits EFF chairperson Vuyani Pambo told students that all entrances would be barricaded and that no one would enter or leave the campus as the protest intensified through the afternoon.
Protesting students, supported by a number of university staff, had filled up Senate House in anticipation of the feedback by university management.
Some staff members held up placards calling for the cancellation of a proposed 10.5 percent tuition fee increase for 2016. – ANA