Campus blockade surprises administration
TSHWANE University of Technology management was caught by surprise by a student protest that erupted yesterday morning.
Professor Stanley Mukhola‚ the university’s deputy vice-chancellor: teaching‚ learning and technology‚ said the protest had started without prior notice about grievances.
“We’re all caught by surprise by our students who decided to close our gates without informing us what the problems are‚” Mukhola said.
“At about 5am I received a call from one of our bus directors [asking]: ‘Look we have tyres burning‚ what do we do?’ I said ‘Stop the buses.’ What can we do?”
At that stage, he said, nobody knew what the problem was.
“Normally they come to us‚ we sit and talk and solve all the problems. But this morning we don’t know what actually went wrong.”
Students‚ mainly members of the ANC-aligned SA Students Congress (Sasco)‚ shut down TUT’s main campus in Pretoria West.
They burnt tyres in its main entrance‚ blocking everyone from entering. Police monitored the situation from outside the campus.
Students not part of the protest waited outside, but eventually left.
As far as he knew, Mukhola said, there were no outstanding issues be- tween students and management.
The Sasco members said they were up in arms over old issues.
Their main gripe was that the National Student Financial Aid Scheme funds allocated to TUT did not cover the rent of students in private residences near the campus.
This left many funded students without proper accommodation.
TUT does not have residences for all its students.