UCT students still waiting on appeals

Financial, academic exclusions process continues, classes missed

MORE than 200 UCT students have been unable to start their 2017 academic year because the results of their appeals against either financial and/or academic exclusions are still up in the air.

A total of 227 appeals were still pending, said the university. Of those, 157 were unsuccessful academic appeals which would be reviewed, and 11 appeals were pending. Of the financial exclusion appeals, 59 were pending and 80 had been unsuccessful.

The delays have raised the ire of students and a group of about 30 decided to occupy the Bremner Building – the scene of the #FeesMustFall occupation – this week.

Students said they feared they would fall behind after three weeks of not attending classes, due to the inability to register as a result of the appeals process.

Student leader Masixole Mlandu said: “Over 100 students are unable to register because of debt or academics. We are calling on management to speed up the process.”

Yesterday UCT acting vice-chancellor Professor Loretta Feris said 1 312 appeals had been considered by the Students Financial Aid Office with regards to financial exclusions. Of those, 1 173 had been successful and 59 were pending, leaving 80 students out in the cold.

“The only appeals that were unsuccessful are students whose family income is above the funding threshold of R550 000 per annum,” Feris said.

“The UCT executive has taken an approach to ensure that, as far as possible, all students are accommodated and their situations are handled on a case-by-case basis. In the final analysis there will be students who will be academically excluded for legitimate reasons and some students who will be financially excluded as they are not eligible or do not qualify for assistance. We are working hard to ensure the process is fair.”

Mlandu said many of the students appealing did not meet the 50% pass requirement set by NSFAS, considering the time lost in the protests and the “student mental psyche at the time”.

He said another factor was not taking the “missing middle” into account.

“Many of the students are too rich to qualify for the National Student Financial Aid Scheme but too poor to afford the fees. They forget about the black tax and expenses that many of our parents have in addition to our tuition,” said Mlandu.

He said students would continue to occupy Bremner.

But the university has urged students to vacate the building. “The occupation is unacceptable, is in breach of the agreement between the executive and student representatives and is interfering with administrative activities,” said Feris.

Student Representative Council vice-chairman Ryan Prithraj said students had come to the SRC requesting assistance with the exclusions.

He said the situation was exacerbated by panic over not attending classes. “The academic calendar started later than normal and is more compacted. Students don’t have time to appeal as they need to be in class. This concentrated a lot of pressure. The students make all these appeals while missing out on academics. Before, appeals were held two weeks before classes resume.”

The SRC said it was looking at a way to streamline the process. –