University working hard to resolve students’ problems

MBOMBELA – The University of Mpumalanga (UMP) is working on ways to resolve the problems affecting its students.

Monday’s protests at the Mbombela campus continued on Tuesday morning. Students blockaded the road with logs and garbage bins. They started throwing stones and bottles at police stationed on the scene. In response, they fired stun grenades and rubber bullets at the students. Employees working on the construction at the university were evacuated.

The students are calling for the university not to increase fees in the 2017 academic year. They also plead with the university to provide adequate accommodation to all students and fix the broken showers in their residences. Students also want the university to provide bursaries through partnerships with role players in the private sector.

The university’s vice-chancellor, Prof Thoko Mayekiso, told Lowvelder that more than 60 per cent of the 800 students at the Mbombela campus were fully funded by the National Students Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS).

The scheme has centralised its application system by which applicants send their applications directly to its offices in Cape Town. “Once the application has been processed we contact the students to update them about their application,” said Mr Tshepo Kganyo from the financial aid scheme.

Yet students claim that while the scheme promised 100 per cent funding for all UMP students in 2016, their applications were still pending.

“The liaison between us and the head office in Cape Town is long,” said student leader, Mr Thabiso Shongwe. “We want an office here on the university which will assist us directly.”

Mayekiso said UMP was engaging the scheme to set up a full office on the campus to respond adequately to the needs of the students.

“We are a new institution and some of the complaints from the students includes not receiving enough information about how NSFAS works. At the moment we are not able to regulate that,” she said.

In total the university have 1 255 students in both the Mbombela and Siyabuswa campuses. All the education students on the Siyabuswa campus were funded by the Funza Lushaka Bursary for education students. Students enrolled for agricultural programmes were beneficiaries of the Agricultural Sector Education and Training Authority bursary, while some were recipients of the Mpumalanga Government bursary scheme.

Mayekiso added that students were mixing issues surrounding campus problems and the #FeesMustFall campaign. “We can only resolve issues that are concerned with us at the campus level. Like their demand to have the library operate 24 hours,” she said.

However, the minister of higher education, Mr Blade Nzimande announced that universities will decide what increase to impose while government would fund financially needy students to ensure they continue to pay 2015 rates.

The students said they would not write their year end examinations until their grievances were met. The Universities South Africa said it was anxious that the 2017 academic year would not end productively due to the ongoing widespread protests.

“There will have to be ongoing and open dialogues on each campus and national ones as well,” communications manager, Ms Mateboho Green said. “The voices of parents will have to be heard and perhaps even more importantly, the voices of those students which are not being heard. Each university in our system will have to work out how to achieve this.”

Meanwhile, parliament’s committee on education and recreation said silence by parents was worrying as they remain an essential role player. “Their active contribution will play a critical role in finding the necessary resolutions and prevent any deviation and anarchy,” said Ms Lungelwa Zwane, committee chairman.

By Wednesday morning, the situation at UMP was calm. Police said no arrests made regarding the public violence.