By Staff Reporter
23/10/2015
President Jacob Zuma said there will be no fee increase for universities for 2016. He said there was also an agreement that the universities will extend the examination period to allow students to prepare.
He said other matters that were discussed with the university stakeholders included racism and accommodation problems experienced by students. President Zuma said government understands the problems experienced by students. In the long term, there is a package of issues that was raised at the meeting that needs to be followed up. These include free education, institutional autonomy, racism and what the students call “black debt’’. The Presidential said the task team that had been established to address funding mechanisms will be broadened to look at all these and other broader transformation issues affecting higher education. “Government understands the difficulty faced by students from poor households and urges all affected to allow the process to unfold to find long term solutions in order to ensure access to education by our students,” he said.
While the President was meeting with the university stakeholders, students were pelting the police with stones who retaliating with teargas and stunt grenades. The students said they were not happy that the meeting was taking place in the boardroom and no one was updating them.
The meeting was attended by Ministers, Chairpersons of University Councils, Vice-Chancellors, Presidents of Students Representative Councils from around the country, and Representatives of Student Movements, South African Students Congress (SASCO), Democratic Alliance Students Organisation (DASO), Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) Student Command and South African Democratic Students Movement (SADESMO).
Your reporter brings you scenes from Union Building/Pretoria
