30 000 would-be UJ students cause chaos

2011-01-10 19:45

Johannesburg - About 30 000 late applicants at the University of Johannesburg (UJ), mostly on its Kingsway campus, caused heavy traffic jams on Monday, Johannesburg metro police said.

"The applicants were parking on Kingsway Road and this made traffic very heavy... it was severely congested," said Chief Superintendent Wayne Minnaar.

He said traffic was affected from midday until about 17:00.

UJ's registrar, Professor Marie Muller, said the flood in late applications could be attributed to the increase in the "number of National Senior Certificate holders in Gauteng that obtained University admission in the 2010 exams", compared to last year.

The university received 63 400 applications for 2011 first year undergraduate studies in the dedicated application period in 2010.

"The university's pre-selection is based on Grade 11 results and UJ conditionally admitted 17 500 applicants."

University spokesperson Herman Esterhuizen said some of these accepted applicants may have applied to other universities and so would not actually enrol at UJ, in which case there would be some available spaces for late applicants.

"Every late applicant that arrived today (Monday) was given an application form... but some were still upset because they thought that they could arrive at the university and register. It just doesn't work like that.

"Some applicants were quite upset and had to be escorted off the campus."

Muller said UJ may enrol 48 000 students in 2011 and this included all undergraduate and postgraduate students.

She also reminded applicants that "compliance with the minimum admission requirements does not guarantee a study place at UJ".

- SAPA