TUESDAY, 5.30PM:
MORE universities announced on Tuesday that they face unnmanageable debts as a result of non-payment of fees. Hardest hit are apartheid’s former “bush colleges”.
The University of the North-West, facing over R4-million in outstanding fees, will join other tertiary institutions in barring students with outstanding balances from registering. The University of the Orange Free State’s representative said the institution was owed R11-million at the beginning of December, but there is hope that about R7,5-million will be recovered.
The University of the Witwatersrand is owed about R10-million, while the University of Cape Town is owed just over R15-million. Both universities expect to recoup most of this money in the next few weeks.
TUESDAY, 3.30PM:
MORE than 400 University of the Western Cape students marched on Tuesday morning from the campus to the Bellville Magistrate’s Court, where 308 of them appeared on trespassing charges.
The students were arrested at the university on Sunday after ignoring orders to leave their hostels after not paying fee arrears. The students were processed by the court in batches of 100. No charges were read and the students were warned to appear again on March 9
A spokesperson for the students, SRC chairman Goodenough Kodwa, said many of the students camped on the campus boundary on Monday night but that no alternative accommodation had been arranged for them.
. He said students face a financial crisis because they do not have money to pay outstanding fees.
The university has suspended all activities on campus until Thursday after UWC management and student leaders could not break the deadlock on the issue of students’ fees.
TUESDAY, 10.30AM:
THE University of the Western Cape, where hundreds of protesting students were arrested at the weekend, and cash-strapped University of Fort Hare closed their doors on Monday, and universities countrywide are bracing themselves for protest action and sit-ins on Thursday following their decision not to allow students with outstanding fees to register for 1998.
Two Eastern Cape institutions, the University of Fort Hare in Alice and the University of Transkei in Umtata — owed R26-million and R17,5-million respectively in outstanding fees — took a tough stance on Monday, saying that action will be taken to recoup the losses from unpaid fees and to stem any further escalation of student debt.
Fort Hare’s South African Students’ Congress secretary general, Tshilidzi Ratshitanga, said almost the entire Students’ Representative Council had been barred from registering on Monday for owing fees, and the council’s president, Thembinkosi Bonakele, called on students to boycott Tuesday’s registration process at the university. He said the boycott is aimed at pressuring the university management to commit itself to a negotiated settlement over the fees.
The ANC Youth League at the University of Pretoria said it will join the nationwide protest following an increase of fees at the university.
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