Student leaders must ”sit down and talk” to resolve the issues sparking a series of student protests around Gauteng, a national Department of Education spokesperson said on Tuesday.
”Our view is that these incidents can only be resolved through dialogue,” Tommy Makhode said.
Makhode was speaking after a series of student uprisings around Gauteng and unrest at a school in the North West province.
Seventeen protesting pupils were arrested at the Leruntsi Lesedi Secondary School in Lebaleng in the North West, and at the University of Pretoria’s Mamelodi campus about 200 students fled from a bonfire of burning tyres as a police water cannon came to extinguish the blaze.
Students at the newly merged University of Johannesburg toyi-toyied and sang outside the Bunting Road campus in Cottesloe near the South African Broadcasting Corporation to highlight their grievances.
Police vans and riot police blocked the road, preventing a march to the nearby Kingsway campus, previously known as the Rand Afrikaans University.
A scheduled meeting between student leaders, the university’s vice-chancellor, Roux Botha, and the executive committee failed to take place and Botha also did not address the protesters later, as they had been told.
By mid-afternoon, protesters were told that after consultation with the Department of Education the protest had been called off but a class boycott will continue.
News of the boycott was met with heckles and boos and, during a brief pause while two student leaders struggled for control of the loudhailer, protesters began throwing stones at them.
”They expect us to boycott classes. They are mad,” said one student as he ran for cover.
”We don’t want a boycott, we want to go to classes,” said another.
Earlier, students were divided over what action to take with some supporting an illegal march and others insisting on a peaceful demonstration.
”Use your brains, we will be arrested,” pleaded one.
The stoning incident was over quickly and students appeared to be dispersing.
The students’ grievances relate to the merger of the Rand Afrikaans University and the campuses of the Technikon Witwatersrand to form one university. Campuses are as far afield as Doornfontein, the East Rand and Soweto.
”It is about accessibility and equality of resources,” said Technikon Witwatersrand student representative council president Xolani Fakude.
Students want all the campuses to be equal, only one language to be used, buses between campuses and socio-economic needs to be addressed.
Other issues include financial and academic exclusions, the scrapping of certain extra fees and making main roads around campuses safer to cut down on accidents, Fakude said.
Some of the posters students carried complained of racism.
The Young Communists’ League of South Africa issued a statement saying it has resolved to support the protesting students at various universities throughout the country, but discourages acts of vandalism. — Sapa