Tensions are rising at the Eastern Cape’s Walter Sisulu University after students have been trying to register without success for weeks.
The stalemate is due to what some describe as the malfunctioning systems and incompetence. The situation has been worsened by the institution’s move to eject unregistered students at the Ibika Campus in Butterworth.
Lindiwe Zena is one of the students trying to register. “We arrived here at 7h30 and the stuff was not here yet; then we managed to get inside but unfortunately we entered without an order – they chased us away but managed to take some of us. I’m still loitering around the hall not knowing what to do exactly, they’re not even assisting us on where to go, which stage to go. There are no people supporting us around here.”
SRC president, Lihle Klaas says management must account. “Indeed the management is failing us, particularly with regards to the issue of registration because we have a challenge. In the past week we had an issue with security that was shooting students and chasing students out. Students who were supposed to be here for registration but due to lack of stuff and maladministration of WSU, those students are still outside and we have this influx of students.
“We are still having a number of spaces that need to be filled, the only thing that has been done by the management in trying to intervene, they called armed security to chase everybody who is inside including the SRC and political structures that are here to assist in this process of right to learn,”
Klaas explained.
