Spin doctors of higher education institutions were not prepared for the #FeesMustFall campaign that gripped the nation last year. This was revealed on Thursday at a Cape Town workshop called Crisis in the Storm‚ held in attempt to improve crisis and reputation management for university communications staff."The 2015 student protests have shaken the country into action‚ engagement‚ debate and even at times confusion. In some instances they have shown how ill prepared we were to deal with the rapidly changing nature of the uprising‚" said Patricia Lawrence‚ pro-vice chancellor of institutional advancement at the University of the Western Cape."At times student movements outsmarted communications people‚ especially in the social space."Sizwe Nxasana‚ chairman of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme‚ said leaders such as politicians or vice-chancellors often preferred to deal with good news because they wanted to be popular."As leaders we want to sugar-coat things. We only release partial information‚ or information that is convenient. Quite often it happens that we don’t have all the information‚ but whatever information you have you have to put it out there‚" he said.He added that the public would be more understanding if leaders "own up to mistakes". ..