UCT students start occupation to protest financial exclusion
The university says there are over 1,600 students with debt, amounting to R88 million
Over 150 UCT students protested in the Kramer Law Building on Friday against the financial exclusion of those who are unable to pay fees or who have historic debt. Photo: Ashraf Hendricks
- UCT students marched to the Kramer Law building to protest against financial exclusion.
- The action follows protests by students in Johannesburg this week over the same issue.
- UCT says there are over 1,600 students with debt at the institution, which amounts to R88 million.
- The university says it is waiting for NSFAS to approve funding for this year, but added that it offers free registration for all students.
Students from the University of Cape Town (UCT) began gathering to protest against âfinancial exclusionâ from about 6am on Friday. By 10am, the group marched to the Kramer Law building on Middle Campus where the crowd grew to over 150 people.
Addressing the protesters over a loudhailer, Students Representative Council (SRC) President Declan Dyer said, âThis is now the student centre. We will occupy Kramerâ. He said they chose the Kramer building because it was also the headquarters of UCTâs financial aid and student housing offices.
This follows protests by students of Wits University in Johannesburg this week.
Dyer said they were protesting in solidarity with the â2,500 students who are being financially excludedâ from UCT. Dyer said they will call the vice-chancellor and management to address them.
Mila Zibi, of the residence council, warned that the group would remain in the building until management met them to âgive us a way forwardâ.
He said that some students had already graduated but could not get their transcripts due to the fee issue. This, he said, makes them âunemployable because they donât have something that says that these people have graduated.â He said that they want studentsâ debt to be cleared and for them to be allowed to register.
Zibi said that another issue they wanted addressed was for the withdrawn offers for student residences to be reversed. He said that the most affected are âpoor black studentsâ who donât have access to wifi or food. âThe university must pressure the government to make sure that there are funds to register these students,â he said.
Zibi is a returning student, and although his student finances are secure, he said it was important to show solidarity. âWe are here to fight for other students ⌠itâs not fine for a few of us to have rightsâ and âif we do not stop it now, it might happen to us as well,â he said.
In a statement Elijah Moholola, spokesperson for UCT, said that they are aware of the issues raised by the students. He said that âUCT has set aside around R30 millionâ to assist eligible students with historic debt.
âThe university has about 1,655 students with historic debt, amounting to R88 million,â said the statement. UCT was âawaiting NSFAS funding decisions for 2021 applicantsâ.
Moholola added, âUCT does not charge any registration fee. Students can register without having to make any payment, including the minimum initial payment.â
Support independent journalism
Donate using Payfast
Don't miss out on the latest news
We respect your privacy, and promise we won't spam you.
Next: MPs row over Lottery board selection
Previous: Plea for Mozambican government to locate Cape Town man
© 2021 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, not tracking users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.