Don’t disrupt studies any further, pleads minister
Students must continue paying fees this year while issues are addressed
THE DEPARTMENT of Higher Education and Training has pleaded with students to stop their fee protests and allow the 2016 academic year to continue without further disturbances.
It reiterated yesterday it was working on addressing issues around the “missing middle”: students who don’t qualify for the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) but are also not financially able to pay their own tuition fees.
Minister Blade Nzimande said that for this academic year, students had to continue paying their fees, but a new model was being developed to deal with funding problems.
“The new criteria will be looked at in the context of addressing the missing middle. The qualifying criteria have been around for a long time and that is also under review,” he said after a meeting with vice-chancellors at the NSFAS management offices in Kempton Park yesterday.
NSFAS chairman Sizwe Nxasana said that for this year, the criteria that NSFAS uses would stay the same. “The new model is not just addressing funding issues for the missing middle. It’s addressing funding issues for poor students as well. The criteria it will use are still a work in progress. It will also seek to address progression rates and employability once finished,” he said.
Nxasana added that the model would be piloted in a few institutions next year and then adopted by all universities by 2018.
The Wits vice-chancellor, Adam Habib, yesterday again defended the use of private security on campus. “The only reason private security was brought on is because registration was being disrupted. We can’t address inequality in our society if we don’t open our universities. All that security is there to ensure safety and security for everybody, and ensure that people are not threatened. And in order for registration to take place.”
The fee protests have been violent on some campuses, with students and workers damaging property. Sasria SOC Limited, an insurance company contracted by universities, has announced that it received more than 100 claims in damages related to #FeesMustFall protests from universities since November.
About 57 percent of the claims exceeded R20 000 while 12 percent were for more than R350 000.
The executive manager at Sasria, Thokozile Ntshiqa, said they had paid out about R600 000 in claims.
“Some of the claims we received from businesses in the wake of #FeesMustFall protests were well in excess of R500 000 in value, with one claim for damages to univer- sity property amounting to R10 million,” she said.
“Most were related to business interruption, fires on commercial premises, damage to equipment and damage to vehicles. Some of these claims have already been settled, but many are still being assessed and processed.”
The Wits University student representative council (SRC) and management have agreed that all qualifying students would have their debt rolled over to 2016 and they would be allowed to register without paying a registration fee.
The University of Johannesburg said over 25 percent of all students had registered using their online portal.
UJ deputy vice-chancellor of strategic services Mpho Letlape said the university had by yesterday registered more than 13 000 students. This, she said, was more than one-quarter of their entire student body and in line with the pace of registration in previous years.
“This is a particularly significant number when one remembers that payday for many parents who are responsible for their children’s first fee instalment is still a week away,” she added.