For decades now what should be joyous and happy events at the University of Zululand have turned ugly, with students injured and university property rubbished, often at very great cost.
Each time, as the cost to its image is reassessed, the university’s beleaguered spokespersons from the Rector down, tell the same sad story.
They undertake that whatever issues are the cause for student hooliganism, these will be addressed and that remedial measures will be implemented as soon as possible.
That monotonous refrain has now worn perilously thin as the flagrant disrespect by Unizulu students for places and people of learning are so predictably violated, semester after semester, year after year.
Recently students utterly destroyed, at huge cost, a state-of-the-art identification system – installed for their own safety – and last week they gate-crashed a beauty pageant, smashing property as they went.
These random acts of violence at a tertiary institution, stretching over many years, have become predictable and the university’s management must now be seen to act decisively in defence of their managerial abilities and the safety of those students who want none of this hooliganism.
The bulk of the students are local youth whose parents make huge sacrifices to ensure that their children get a decent education, ensuring a dignified future as we enter perilous economic times.
If these irresponsible students do not respect what tertiary institutions represent, they have no business there.
As the main tasks of a university are teaching, community enhancement and research, it is in these fields which the broader South African community wishes to hear about Unizulu’s achievements and this newspaper proudly and prominently reports on such highlights.
We do this because we regard Unizulu as our institution, the only place of higher education between the Tugela and Mozambique, not some sort of ill-reputed backwoods bazaar.
Come on guys, make us proud of you, stop disappointing us!
