Cape Town-120118-Cput Protest. Students leave the Administration building after someone, allegedly students, sprayed pepper spray. Picture Jeffrey Abrahams Cape Town-120118-Cput Protest. Students leave the Administration building after someone, allegedly students, sprayed pepper spray. Picture Jeffrey Abrahams
Lauren Isaacs
AN “unaffordable” increase in registration and tuition fees is at the root of its demonstrations at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) campuses, the SA Students Congress (Sasco) said yesterday
.
Starting this year, the up-front payment for a full-time non-residence student will be R3 500 which includes the R640 registration fee. The money is payable upon registration. Last year the figure was R2 400.
In residence students will pay R5 000, which includes R3 500 for registration and tuition fees. Last year the figure was
R3 400.
“To pay R5 000 registration is spitting in the faces of the poor. Statistics show an average black household in the Western Cape earns R1 600 per month. How does someone who earns this kind of money, pay registration fees of R5 000?” Sasco provincial secretary, Monwabisi Luthuli commented yesterday during a second day of demonstrations at CPUT’s city campus.
Luthuli said Sasco wanted Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande to intervene on behalf of students who could not afford the increase.
“At the Sasco national congress, Blade Nzimande agreed that R2 500 should be the amount for registration fees. We believe that he will be able to speak to CPUT management. We are only asking for a better opportunity at education. This (demonstration) is just the beginning, we won’t stop until we get an answer. We will get arrested if we must,” he said.
CPUT spokesman Thami Nkwanyane said its management had always been, and still was, prepared to talk to students to resolve the problem.
“The overall motivation for the increases was the rising cost of operating our residences. The increase was required to match the actual rise in costs of operating residences which is significantly higher than inflation,” he said.
Nkwanyane said the increase was an attempt to bring CPUT’s fees in line with other universities of technology.
Sasco yesterday said the demonstrations were also the “start to a fight for free education”.
Demonstrations at the Cape Town campus started early in the morning with a crowd of about 300 students who refused to pay the increased fees.
The registration process came to a halt when they marched around the campus, singing “ Siyaya... noma besidubula, noma besishaya” (We are going...Even if they are shooting us, even if they are beating us).
Security officials dubbed “red jackets” because of their distinctive uniforms, made numerous attempts to disperse the crowd with pepper spray.
But this did not deter them. Several demonstrators covered their faces with
handkerchiefs. Luthuli said demonstrators would not interfere with students who could afford increases and came to campus to register.
However, some protesters sprayed pepper spray through windows broken in Tuesday’s protests, forcing CPUT staff to evacuate the buildings.
Electrical Engineering student Marcellino Arendse, who came to register for his fourth year (BTech) was one of several students who queued in searing heat yesterday before they were turned back and told to return today.
“I was in the building about to be registered when pepper spray was sprayed by strikers. The building was evacuated… and we are still waiting. I am frustrated and angry,” he said.
Also inconvenienced were students who had travelled from Johannesburg and Namibia for registration and had return flights booked for later yesterday afternoon.
lauren.isaacs@inl.co.za