Unisa students stage national shutdown
Students at the University of South Africa (Unisa) have vowed to shut down all campuses across the country, including Pretoria's Florida campus, until management meet their demands.
They're accusing management of failing to address issues raised by students.
President of Unisa's student representative council (SRC) Wadzanai Mazheteze says one of the key issues is the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (Nsfas).
"The university is failing to process the appeals of our students.
"Our other query is also that the allowance that students are getting are not correctly allocated. For instance, a student who is suppose to get R5000 book allowance only receives R1800. That is the problem."
Mazheteze adds that they are prepared to escalate the matter to the Department of Higher Education, should their demands not be met by the institution.
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"One of the reasons we are taking our issues to department is that we don't believe management in Unisa currently has capacity to deal with the problems. I don't think also there is a will to really assist students. We believe that their interests are not necessarily the best interest of our students. We are of the view that they are driven by other private interests.”
The students are set to meet with management on Tuesday to discuss the outcomes of Monday's meeting.
The affected campuses include those in Gauteng, Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
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