Allegations of racism and unfair discrimination may lead to class boycotts and protest rallies at the University of Pretoria, the South African Student Congress (Sasco) warned on Monday.
”We will be calling on students to boycott classes and join marches on campus,” said branch secretary Joe Heshu, who believes the university runs discriminatory policies in favour of white students.
Sasco held a press conference on Monday to complain about two student representative councils (SRCs) in one university, the 9,5% increase in tuition fees and the alleged ”colour bar accommodation policy”.
He said a meeting will be held on Wednesday to set a date for the disruptions.
”The UP [University of Pretoria] council recently took a resolution to wrongfully keep two SRCs in one university; one white, powerful and rich, and the other black, weak and poor,” Heshu said.
But Professor Chris de Beer, who is in charge of student affairs, said it has been decided to merge the two SRCs — one from the main campus in Pretoria and the other from the merging Mamelodi campus — in the 2005/06 academic year.
”But for now we have decided to keep the two SRCs and to form a coordinating body consisting of the two presidencies,” he said.
This body, he said, will be responsible for running the constitutional affairs of both SRCs.
He argued that there are more black students on the main campus than all the students on the Mamelodi campus combined, so the race card cannot be played.
Also responding to allegations that the university has a 40%-60% residents’ policy split in favour of whites at UP hostels, De Beer said this is in line with the racial split at the university.
”About 38% of our undergraduates are black and 43% of our postgraduates. Overall about 40% of our students are black,” he said.
But Heshu argued that this is ”blatant, unfair discrimination”.
”We believe the current policy does not affirm poor and needy students in particular. We thus demand a policy, which is based on need, distance and academic performance as alternative criteria for placement.”
De Beer, however, said the current policy has been implemented to protect black students.
”If we had a first-come-first-serve policy then less than 40% of the residences would be black and currently there are a number of residences that have more than 40% black students,” he said.
The university called on students to discuss matters before calling for mass actions.
”Students should know by now that we have an open-door policy,” said De Beer, adding that while the university does not underestimate the threat, it feels it can be dealt with.
He believes discussions, which have been going on between the university and Sasco, should be allowed to continue before action is taken. — Sapa