Police fire rubber bullets and teargas at toyi-toying students
Students chanted, danced and sang struggle songs along Partridge Avenue
“NO money, no school,’ chanted students from Ekurhuleni West College (EWC), Kempton Park campus on Monday morning as they sang and danced in protest at the school’s entrance.
The street had been cordoned off by police but this didn’t stop students from toyi-toying on Partridge Avenue.
Police eventually fired rubber bullets and teargas at the students to disperse them.
Kempton Park SAPS spokesman, Capt Jethro Mtshali, said six students were arrested and released on a warning for conducting an illegal gathering.
This was the second protest in two weeks. Students also blockaded the entrance on Thursday morning last week.
On Sunday afternoon SMSs were received by students informing them the campus would be closed indefinitely.
The SMS’s read: ‘Kempton campus will be closed on Monday 3 August 2015 indefinitely. Examinations continue. Protection will be given by college council and management.”
“We want the department of higher education and training (DHET) to come and speak to us and tell us how much they’ve given out for bursaries because we want transparency,” said one of the student representatives, Nompumelelo Mkhize (21).
The main issue the students are raising is that they want to know why their bursaries will no longer be paying for their fees.
Letters received from the school earlier in June read: “Dear student, we regret to inform you that your application for the DHET FET College Bursary Scheme was unsuccessful. Your application was declined due to the following reason: DHET Bursary Funding have been exhausted/depleted for 2015.”
Some students said they had never received transport money from their bursaries and others claim that they are only getting a small portion of what they are actually supposed to be receiving.
Mkhize said they had contacted the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) which is a South African government student loan and bursary scheme that provides loans and bursaries to students at public universities and 50 public TVET colleges throughout the country, including EWC.
NSFAS is funded by DHET.
“NSFAS told us they had administered funds to all colleges, including EWC, now we want to know why our funds at our campus have been depleted. From where are we supposed to get money because some of us are in our final year?” she asked.
Mkhize said they wanted answers.
On Thursday last week the campus manager, Mr Mudau, held a meeting with the students where a consensus was apparently not reached.
“Mudau wanted students to go back to class, there was no agreement reached. He said he would give us a solution on Monday but now we received SMSs yesterday saying the campus is closed,” said Mkhize.
Last week Mudau refused to speak to EXPRESS and said he would get into trouble if he did so.
On Monday morning there was no sign of any staff members at the college.
Calls to DHET and to the principal of the EWC colleges, Hellen Ntlatleng, proved futile.
