Students seeking admission to tertiary institutions around Pretoria continue to arrive at the institutions despite announcements that walk-ins will not be allowed.
On Tuesday, there were long queues at the Tshwane North College, while at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) prospective students were allowed onto campus, but were not assisted. They were told to register online.
The TUT is among the institutions of higher learning in the capital city that are not entertaining walk-ins at their campuses. TUT says there is still space available in some fields of study and that prospective students should make use of the online application system.
However, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) Student Comand is against this. The command’s spokesperson, Donald Phadi, says they are not impressed by the intuition’s behaviour towards prospective students who showed up on the TUT campus. He says initially the TUT management locked them out, but after engagements they were let in but not assisted.
“They tried the management to close out all the students who are coming from bitter backgrounds to enter the institution but because of EFF all students were covered and entered. In relation to TUT, majority of them are coming from deep rural areas whereby there is no WIFI; whereby there is nothing like access to the internet; there are no laptops. So these people come here they are saying they only entertain online applications. Where do these people access internet? Hence we are saying those people must be allowed to make it manual in this institution.”
The Student Command also demands that previous debts for returning students be scrapped and their results released.
“As the president has suggested that there must be free quality education for all until tertiary level, our position is that all the historical debts must be scrapped. What is the use of the students paying if there is free education? All of them must be absorbed by the system that has been proposed by the president, that’s our position.”
TUT says it is still accepting applications, but emphasised that prospective students can only apply online. Spokesperson Wila de Ruyter says they can only admit a certain number.
“In line with the Department of Higher Education and Training’s approved TUT student enrollment plan, we are permitted to only enroll fifteen thousands and sixty one students. Unfortunately, we are not permitted to exceed that number.”
Meanwhile, at Tshwane North College, prospective students were turned away due to lack of places. Some of the students had been queuing outside the campus since the early hours of Monday. Some of them voiced their frustrations. “We have been here for more than eight hours. They haven’t been attending to us. There is no management. We are so exhausted and tired,” says of prospective students.
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