Sasco has warned universities not to try to initiate fee increase discussions, or to be prepared to “meet in the battlefields”.
|||Johannesburg - The South African Students Congress (Sasco) has warned universities not to try to initiate fee increase discussions, or to be prepared to “meet in the battlefields”.
At a media briefing in Joburg on Thursday, Sasco said any talk about 2017 academic year fee increases was sub judice.
The organisation is angry that the University of Johannesburg tried to make the subject a part of a council agenda.
Sasco accused UJ of intimidating students who didn’t want to discuss the fee increments by suspending them.
UJ announced the suspension of 17 students suspected of being involved in the burning of an auditorium on campus earlier this year.
Sasco president Thabo Moloja said: “No one has been arrested or confronted by the police. Only when the item of fees comes up are students then suspended. (UJ vice-chancellor Ihron) Rensburg is just terrorising students.”
UJ spokeswoman Kaamini Reddy dismissed the allegation. “The latest desperate claims regarding fee increases at UJ are aimed at provoking our students, yet these are far from the truth. The fact is that fees for 2017 are still under discussion, as are measures to secure the sustainability of universities and measures to achieve expanded funded access.”
Sasco secretary Thembani Makata said that when the organisation met the fees commission, it was unhappy that the report-back was postponed from this month to March.
“This left us in the middle of nowhere. What then happens in January, because the commission was to put an end to #FeesMustFall? But now there is no discussion on what will happen now. There is no interim solution,” Makata said.
She said UJ was not the only institution that wanted to open fee increment talks.
“Fort Hare and Walter Sisulu University have called SRC (student representative council) members to discuss fee increments. We had to stop them because we believe the matter is sub judice. It is undermining of the presidential commission to want to have a discussion on fee increments.”
Moloja said the Commission of Inquiry into Higher Education and Fees, which is conducting public hearings in Pretoria, was a compromise entered into last year to stop the #FeesMustFall protests.
He said: “SAUS (South African Union of Students) is the correct organisation to make a submission to the commission. But universities are going to the commission about student fees.
“Universities never went on strike last year. Universities can’t enter into a debate on whether free education is feasible or not. It’s not their place.”
On Friday, Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande was expected to speak on recommendations by the Council for Higher Education on next year’s fee increases.
On fears that universities would not be able to meet their financial obligations if fees were not increased next year, Moloja said: “They did not increase fees last year and the gates are still open.
“We are not raising things from an unreasonable point. Universities must be funded by the state.
“Part of the reason we have many challenges in this country is because we are prioritising things that are not important in empowering the youth of this country.
“That’s why we should not be threatened by such remarks by the likes of (University of Cape Town vice-chancellor) Max Price and his colleagues at universities in South Africa.”
tebogo.monama@inl.co.za
The Star