Wits tech students up in arms

2003-08-13 10:51

Johannesburg - Thousands of students at Technikon Witwatersrand protested in Johannesburg on Wednesday against management changing rules without consulting them.

The road outside the technikon's Auckland Park Campus was guarded by the metro police and SA Police Service, after dustbins were tipped into the road and tyres burned by students in order to block traffic.

Recently the technikon stopped allowing friends and parents of students from visiting them in their rooms at their hostels for security reasons.

"My father pays my fees and even he is not allowed in my room," said 20-year-old Kagisho Mashiya.

"We are now told our parents have to visit us in designated areas such as the television room or reception. There is no privacy because other students are in this rooms."

Goitse Moathe, a member of the Student Representative Council, said students were the clients of the technikon and needed to be part of the decision-making process.

"We had a meeting with management yesterday (Tuesday) and at 16:00 they told us the meeting could not go on because it was after hours.

"This is senseless because it is an important issue."

He warned that if the situation was not dealt with soon, students would become angrier than they were already.

"The angrier they get the more problems there will be. We had to lock the doors to the hostels so that there is no chance of vandalism. But if they get angrier they are quite capable of breaking the lock and going into the buildings."

Some students stood around chatting to their friends while most of the others danced up and down the streets singing that the new rule was unfair. Some carried placards reading "an injury to one is an injury to all".

The protest started on Tuesday.

The management of Wits technikon has suspended classes at the Doornfontein and Auckland Park campuses, SABC radio news reported.

Management spokesperson Jonathan Stead told the SABC the technikon had decided to normalise the situation before classes could continue and that management was meeting to discuss the situation. -Sapa

- SAPA