Fort Hare students to meet on varsity impasse

Students protesting at the Alice campus of the University of Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape are scheduled to have a mass meeting on Tuesday afternoon.

Campus premier Lwandile Mgedezi told DispatchLIVE that the purpose of the meeting was to discuss a way forward regarding the protest. Academic activities have ground to a halt at the campus since last week.

Students are demanding that vice-chancellor Sakhela Buhlungu come and receive their memorandum of grievances‚ a call he has defied.

Students have expressed different views on the university Facebook page with some saying they want to return to class while others say they will not return to class until Buhlungu has come to them.

Mgedezi said a decision to return or continue with the protest will be determined by the outcome of the mass meeting. "We will take a mandate from students. They will decide whether the protest should continue or we should go back to class‚" he said.

Last night the protesting students set alight a staff centre and slaughtered a cow they found on campus.

Last week they vandalised university property‚ causing damage amounting to about R1.9-million.

They looted stock like laptops and stationery.