The South African Students’ Congress (Sasco) on Wednesday decided to embark on mass protests against alleged racist policies at the University of Pretoria (UP, Tuks).
At a meeting attended by approximately 150 students, it was decided to ”go to the streets” in protest against allegedly racist policies adopted by the university, said Sasco’s branch secretary, Joe Heshu.
Sasco on Monday complained about the existence of two student representative councils (SRCs) at one university, a 9,5% increase in tuition fees and an allegedly racist accommodation policy at the university.
Following a meeting on Wednesday that included members of the National Education Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) and other unions, Sasco said it has been mandated to take to the streets.
Nehawu spokesperson Molantwa Molaba confirmed that Sasco is an alliance partner but said Nehawu will not participate in the ”destroying of any property”.
He said the union will offer political and legal pressure to the action, which at this stage sounds credible.
Heshu agreed that violent protests such as those at the Ga-Rankuwa campus of the Tshwane University of Technology last month serve no purpose.
Tentatively setting a date for the first week in September to coincide with SRC elections, Heshu said Sasco is at pains not to lose its message in the chaos of any protest.
”We want to do it legally and that is why no firm date has been set yet,” he said.
Protest ‘laughable’
But the South African Liberal Students’ Association (Salsa) has described the proposed protest action as ”laughable”.
”The SRC has for a long time preached about being there for the students, and representing our rights, yet only 24,4% of students at the UP voted in the last elections. This indeed shows great apathy on behalf of the students and effectively undermines the authority the SRC claims to have,” said Salsa spokesperson Nicolas Eliades.
He said that to revert to the ”racism card” is ”a backward move and not in the spirit of the new South Africa”.
Heshu, however, argued that UP’s SRC policy is racially biased.
”The UP 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.”
He also accused the UP of adopting pro-white policies with its 40%-60% allocation of residency space in favour of white students.
University to merge SRCs
But Professor Chris de Beer, who is in charge of student affairs, said the university has in fact decided to merge the two SRCs — one from the main campus in Pretoria and the other from the 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. The body 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 concerning the residencies, 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 post-graduates. Overall about 40% of our students are black,” he said.
Heshu argued, however, 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 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.
Regarding the tuition fees De Beer said that growing student numbers and the resulting increase in administrative and teaching costs — together with a reduction in government funding — have meant that all universities now face potential fee increases.
”This challenge is not borne by the students alone, however,” he said adding that ”continuous and vigorous cost-cutting and streamlining has taken place within every department and function of the university”. — Sapa