Durban — UNISA students in Durban on Monday shut down the campus and demanded that the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) pay out their registration fees.
Approximately 30% of the students have not been able to register for their modules since the beginning of this year.
EFF Students Command secretary at Unisa Durban, Vukani Mntungwa, said that the university was making life harder for students who did not have money and could not afford to pay their own registration fees.
“When we communicate with the university, all they do is tell us to wait for NSFAS to sort out the issue.
“Nobody is speaking about a way forward. “Students are left in the dark and they keep going back and forth. Nothing tangible is being brought to light,” said Mntungwa.
He said that the issue has also affected the students’ mental well-being.
“Some of the students are traumatised and going to therapists for counselling because of this. Most of the students who are not registered are final years. This is standing in their way for them to graduate in record time,” said Mntungwa.
He further stressed that they submitted a memorandum of demands to the university management. The memorandum stated that they were unhappy about how the university has been conducting student affairs.
“The service that they give students is not good at all, because it is affecting the students’ future.
“We demand the university to reverse the registration of students they cancelled, especially students who were reallocated from the old curriculum and new curriculum, since the new curriculum modules are not finalised.
“We demand the university speed up the process of distributing the book allowance,” said Mntungwa.
He said that most of all they were giving management three days to respond, starting from Monday.
He said NSFAS was not the only issue the students were facing at the moment as some students had not received the textbook allowance that was due to them since January.
Unisa Durban spokesperson Jo Cossavella said that the university could confirm that the students submitted a memorandum of demands on Monday in Durban to regional director Dr Joyce Myeza, who was engaging and consulting with the relevant directorates in Pretoria.
“However, the region cannot issue a statement on behalf of the university at the moment,” said Cossavella.
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