Shacked up in a tin hut — for real
WHILE students at South Africa’s privileged universities erect mock shacks in protest at the lack of student accommodation, living and studying in a shack is a cold reality for less fortunate ones.
Patrick Moleke, 22, a third-year human resources management student at Tshwane University of Technology, has been renting a corrugated-iron shack in the Coronation informal settlement, at Emalahleni (Witbank), since 2013.
Moleke, who lives in Limpopo, pays R500 for accommodation. There is no electricity and he is forced to use his neighbour’s pit latrine because his shack does not have one.
He said his parents could not afford the R1 500 a month residence fee that the university wanted when he first applied for a place in a hostel. “I battle to study by candlelight and try as far as pos- STRUGGLE: Human resources management student Patrick Moleke in his shack in Coronation informal settlement near Emalahleni sible to study in the campus library. Life in the shack is very difficult.”
He did not qualify for National Student Financial Aid Scheme funding because both his parents were employed, he said.
“I wish the university could provide me with free accommodation.”
Marginally more fortunate are third-year electrical engineering student Sandra Ramushi and her roommate Sophy Phaahla. They can’t remember when last they had a good night’s sleep.
The two Tshwane University of Technology students, also studying at the Emalahleni campus in Mpumalanga, have been living in a rat-infested room in Coronation since January.
Ramushi, 22, and Phaahla, 20, whose parents rely on social grants, pay R250 a month rent for the room, which does not have electricity.
They are among hundreds of students at the campus who have been forced to rent in informal dwellings and at private homes because the institution’s only hostel has space for roughly 213 of 2 132 students.
The pair sleep on a sponge mattress and bath in a large purple plastic bucket because there is no separate bathroom.
They share a pit latrine, which is a few metres outside their room, with 15 other occupants living in 10 other rooms.
Several other students, including Thabo Mphahlele, 24, in his third year in electrical engineering, and Mandla Ndlovu, 21, second-year electrical engineering, live in informal housing too.
Zodwa Mabena, 20, forks out R700 a month to share a dingy room with four other students in a private home which is also occupied by prostitutes who ply their trade from the premises. HEAVY ODDS: These students lived in the outside room of a brothel in Emalahleni until they moved to new accommodation on Friday
Nine students, including Lesolang Kotelo, 24, each pay R800 to share three rooms in a house where they use a bucket to bath because the drainpipe in the bathroom has been clogged for months.
On Friday, Ramushi, Phaahla, Mphahlele, Ndlovu and Mabena moved into a renovated block of flats after the university agreed on Thursday to make it available to students following protests over accommodation, among other things, that have forced the closure of the university since Monday. Hundreds of others have not been so fortunate.
University of Cape Town students pay from R2 800 to R3 900 a month for shared accommodation in private residences while their peers at the University of the Witwatersrand pay from R2 800 to R5 000 for single rooms. University of Stellenbosch students pay between R3 000 and R7 000 for a room.
Almost 33 000 students from the University of Johannesburg, the University of Limpopo, the Vaal University of Technology, Mangosuthu University of Technology and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University are renting accommodation in private homes. These include 13 000 from UJ who are living in homes accredited by the university.
Said Ramushi: “I found it difficult studying by candlelight in the shack and studied until 6pm at university. You can’t study well here but I am very keen to study and complete my diploma.”
Her mother gives her R330 a month. After paying R125 for rent, she is left with only R205 for groceries.
Said Mabena: “People ended up thinking we were also prostitutes because we were staying on the same premises. We were forced to live there because we did not have any other place to go to.”
A student at a university in Johannesburg said he shared a house with 17 others in Whitehall Street where the rent was R2 200. “There were two toilets and three showers which sometimes broke.”
A student from the Durban University of Technology’s Steve Biko campus said he shared a bathroom and toilet with five students and seven other people. “We do not have time to study in the house because it is always overcrowded. There is no privacy.”
People ended up thinking we were also prostitutes because we were staying on the same premises