‘No smoking at varsities, colleges’

THE SMOKING of cigarettes at universities and TVET Colleges will be prohibited as long as the ban on their sale is in effect, Department of Higher Education spokesperson Ishmael Mnisi said yesterday.

Mnisi was responding to a question posed yesterday to Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande about what would happen to students caught smoking on the premises of higher education institutions during the lockdown.

Nzimande had yesterday visited the Umgungundlovu TVET College in Pietermaritzburg as part of his nationwide drive to check the state of readiness of institutions of higher learning to comply with regulations to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Mnisi told Independent Media that during the lockdown there would be no smoking at universities and TVET Colleges, which have now been opened to certain students.

“This NCC (National Command Council) directive is a directive to all our institutions, and it is going to be part and parcel of what institutions will be doing to ensure that there is compliance,” said Mnisi.

Mnisi was responding after Nzimande was asked what actions would be taken against students who were caught smoking.

Nzimande said the government needed a heightened campaign against smoking and alcohol abuse within the broader society.

He said Covid-19 has exposed society to the need to stop smoking.

“It looks like the level of alcohol abuse in our society is abnormally high,” he said.

“Beyond Covid-19 we may maintain the stringent measures but also to accompany this with education.

“We need a huge, huge campaign against these two things (cigarettes and alcohol), but we won’t win this campaign on our own, and we will need to forge partnership in our society.”

Nzimande also said that National Student Financial Aid Scheme students would have to wait for laptops as National Treasury had warned his department not to take shortcuts in purchasing them for learning purposes.

“In April (when he addressed the nation) I thought we could acquire these gadgets by waiving some of the standard Treasury requirements to procure because of the urgency of the situation, as the government does that now and then. But the Treasury said to us it is not advisable that we waive the normal requirements and rather let us go through the normal process, but shorten it,” said Nzimande.

He added that by next month the department would place an advert which would be followed by a process of determining companies that have capacity to provide the laptops.

“There will be very strict BEE requirements, which is another thing that we have to ensure,” said Nzimande.

He told engineering students that for now they would be provided with network data, which he said they could use on their cellphones for study purposes.

BEYOND COVID-19 WE MAY MAINTAIN THE STRINGENT

MEASURES