A combination of greed, negligence, incompetence, disorganisation and flaws in UJ's admission process is to blame.

I have been accompanying pupils to UJ every year for about four years now. I've stood in those queues year after year, and I know exactly what I'm talking about.

• It should be made clear that those who were crowding outside the gates (I was there) were not just late applicants.

There were returning students who came to sort out their registrations, and there were timeous applicants who were provisionally admitted and were there to submit their final results.

There were also timeous applicants who were not provisionally admitted in 2010, but who passed well and needed to submit their results for admission. There were other thousands who came to enquire about other things. All these people were made to crowd outside one gate.

• Provisional admissions far exceeded capacity so it was unrealistic to call for more applications before finalising the actual numbers.
• Common sense and rationality dictate that the university should have dealt with timeous applications first, before opening up for late applications. This usually results in some late-applicants being admitted first and timeous applicants being told the space is full (I've saw it happen last year to one of my pupils).
• The university's non-refundable application fee increased from R250 to R350 in 2011. That is 40%, compared to the current inflation-rate of about 3%. Why? By calling for late applications, the university received at least R2-million in two days (from more than 7000 applications). This should ring a bell to the sensible. Who benefited most?
• Why would UJ SMS students to come and apply? What else were they expecting when most pupils are desperate for admission at this time?
• Pupils should not be blamed for late applications. In the real world we can't expect pupils to apply to every single university and we cannot expect all matriculants to apply to UJ. Most of these late applicants had applied to other institutions already but were either rejected for not meeting criteria or were not sure of their outcomes and were thus applying to UJ to secure a place in case they were not admitted to their institutions of choice. It's not like all late applicants did not apply at all.
• UJ has four campuses. In previous years, a number of these campuses, if not all, were used for admission processes, and still the crowds at each campus would be astounding. In 2011, UJ decided to only use Bunting Road alone. Why?

I accompanied one of my students to the DFC campus on the morning of the incident, and we were told by security at the gate that all applications and registrations are done at Bunting Road, regardless of study choice. I was shocked, knowing how chaotic this would be. Anyway, we went to Bunting Road, and it was as I expected.

• Unisa enrols thousands of students every year, but a situation like this wouldn't have happened there because they have the proper controls in place. They deal with timeous applicants before dealing with late applicants and they have lots of staff in place during registration to ensure its smooth running.
• When a crowd has grown wild and there are no proper controls in place, people push their way through and a stampede results. You step on someone because you're being pushed from behind. It is not intentional. The crowd at UJ went wild and the security personnel failed to control the situation.

It's unfortunate that some people only learn lessons from tragic events like this, which could have been avoided.