The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) Students Command at the University of KwaZulu-Natal says it is calling on the institution to allow manual registration.
The university has experienced violent protests since the end of last week in which property was damaged, and has beefed up security at all its campuses.
EFF Students Command chairperson Mqondisi Mthembu says the online registration is excluding some students, including first year students.
“We are very clear on that in the terms of demands, the first demand is we are demanding a manual registration on campus so that everyone can be included. We believe that education is not a privilege, it must be treated as a right; which means if the manual registration occurs students will be able to access the equipment on campus. Students will be able to enroll and get every assistance they need from the campus instead of being excluded. It is even worst for the first entry students who do not know how to work with the system of UKZN, those students must come here and be assisted on campus.”
Meanwhile, Mthembu refuted claims by the university that the EFF Students Command is demanding that the institution open its campuses to allow for learning in lecture halls, as was done before the outbreak of the COVID 19 pandemic.
“That one is a completely false information maybe they are trying to put some propaganda over our heads. However we cannot allow that it is very clear that we want only the manual registration not the manual academic calendar to continue as pre Covid-19. We want the manual registration because the most important stage of the university is the registration period where you have to make sure that most students, particularly even black students, are enrolled in the system themselves. We want those people to be included whether you are poor, whether you are rich, they must get an opportunity to enroll on the system,” Mthembu added.
