Medunsa students to vacate campus

The Medical University of South Africa (Medunsa) has suspended classes and students have been ordered to vacate the university premises because of ongoing protests at the institution.

In a letter to students, Vice Chancellor Prof. N. Mokgalong says the decision was made after a number of meetings between the Student Representative Council (SRC), the department of higher education and training, the department of health and the management of the university.

“Despite the sincere efforts of the university management, as reflected in the conciliatory actions taken, you continue to disrupt the academic programme; you continue to harass and intimidate staff and students. Property has been wantonly damaged and destroyed. Anarchy, hooliganism and blatant criminality will not be flourished,” he says in the letter.

“The academic programme is suspended indefinitely; students are ordered to vacate the university premises by 13:00 on 6 August 2014 and the campus SRC is dissolved with immediate effect.”

SRC task team member, Fatuwani Masindi, however, told Rekord the council would not evacuate the premises or dissolve.

“We do not have money and there are some foreign students who do not have relatives in the country. Others come from Cameroon, Ghana, Eastern Cape and Swaziland so where does the university think they will go to?” he said.

Masindi said the SRC was being intimidated by security officials.

“We are being intimidated by the ‘men in black’, who are the bouncers from a private security company, and we will deal with them. That is why we called the police to come and help us with these intruders. We are paying for this place,” he said.

“We want this campus to be under administration. We can’t allow Makgalong to dictate what is happening at the Medunsa campus whereas he is Limpopo. He does not know what is happening here and does not have the best interests of this campus.”

Protests at Medunsa the past two weeks have caused chaos and violence at the campus, with students demanding that ‘lazy lecturers’ be fired. They also objected to is the proposed renaming of the medical institution to Sefako Makgatho. In addition, the students claimed that financial aid, NSFAS refuses to pay 100% of their fees, which is a problem for poor students.

SRC president Melusi Marakalala said|: “There are serious irregularities at the campus and unfair practices by the lecturers and the administrators that were supposed to have been properly addressed a long time ago. We will not allow anyone on the campus until our demands are met. The issues have been neglected and we exhausted all the options so maybe they will listen to us now.”

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