The University of Fort Hare (UFH) has responded to what it describes as “illegal obstruction of access” to its Alice campus, after protests on Monday and Tuesday, saying it had approved most of the financial concessions proposed by the student representative council (SRC).
This comes as tensions over living conditions, allowances and registration remain at the Alice campus.
The university confirmed that the management executive committee (MEC) held two meetings with the SRC last week as part of “ongoing and active institutional dialogue”.
“One of the outcomes of these engagements was the approval of a further set of generous financial concessions, which has allowed students to register,” said university spokesperson JP Roodt.
Management added that it was disappointed that the Young Brightest Motivated Minds (YBMM) student organisation had resorted to protest action “prohibited by a court order”.
SRC president Azole Ntloko confirmed that she attended the meetings with the institutional student representative council (ISRC) members.
“We did have meetings with the MEC, whereby we were discussing concessions, of which 90% were approved,” she said.
The crisis that we are having currently is the one of allocation of students to residences which are not in good conditions, and that has been raised to the MEC
— Azole Ntloko, SRC president
The outstanding issues related to a smaller group of students, she said.
“However, the 10% of the concessions that were not approved are the ones that are affecting the students who are currently outside the system. We wrote a proposal for late registration to allow those issues that affect the 10% of the 90%, which are special cases, to be addressed during this week of late registration.”
Ntloko said while progress had been made, not all students would be satisfied.
“Please note that not all students will be satisfied. Others have their own special cases, though those that are not registered yet it might be because of those reasons, not the reasons of concessions.”
The university said it had completed the registration of all undergraduate students who met the criteria, while master’s and doctoral registrations are under way and are expected to conclude in March.
On allowances, the university said R18m in meal allowances had already been paid, with further payment of R4.4m scheduled for February 12. The NSFAS book allowance will be processed next.
Ntloko confirmed that payments are continuing and that registration is still open.
“Operational issues such as allowances cannot really be finalised because registration hasn’t closed yet, as per the proposal of the SRC, since we saw that there are students, especially postgrads and FTens [first entering], that were still outside of the system struggling with their registration.”
However, she said there were still accommodation challenges.
“The current crisis is the allocation of students to residences which are not in good condition. This has been raised to the MEC.”
The interdict by the institution is meant for silencing student leaders, the SRC is the only body that can address student issues, risking their degrees to protect students from being brutalised by this interdict
— Ntloko
She said campus residences can accommodate about 6,000 students, with other students receiving non-residence allowances, which are not disbursed yet at the Alice campus. At the East London campus, there is also a shortage of space and the SRC is working towards resolving it, she said.
The university said electricity had been restored to affected residences after an electrical cable fault, with a standby generator deployed in the interim.
On the protest action, Ntloko distanced the SRC from the shutdown and criticised the court interdict.
“The interdict by the institution is meant for silencing student leaders The SRC is the only body that can address student issues, risking their degrees to protect students from being brutalised by this interdict,” she said.
On the demands raised by YBMM, Ntloko said they should be channelled through the SRC.
While she acknowledged that the issues raised were student-related, she maintained that student demands should be submitted through proper governance processes for the sake of protecting students from the “brutality” of the interdict, and added that the “university only recognises the SRC as a representative body of students”.
The university has urged students to use established governance platforms to raise concerns and to prioritise academic continuity.
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