UJ at fault - applicants
2011-01-11 14:21
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Johannesburg
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Cape Town - Families of matrics from the class of 2010 applying to the University of Johannesburg expressed anger on Tuesday at the university’s handling of the application process.
This comes as thousands of people waited in queues as long as four kilometres on Tuesday to apply to study at the university.
Violence also broke out on the campus on Monday as the institution received about 30 000 late applications, most of them on the Kingsway campus.
The university’s registrar, Professor Marie Muller attributed the increase in applications to a higher pass rate in Gauteng last year.
“Last year we had 20 000 applications, now we have 40 000,” she said.
Complaints
But News24 has received a number of complaints from users saying that they have family members who sent in their applications to the university before its October 31 closing date.
Mashadi Monaledi said her sisters, Khumo and Moitsheki, sent in their applications three weeks prior to the closing date.
When she did not hear from the university by December she decided to contact them only to be told that her sisters’ applications “were pending”.
On Monday, Monaledi said they went to the Kingsway campus at 06:00 only to be told that they’d spent an hour at the wrong campus.
“They then waited a full six hours in lines. My sisters were told that they had to wait in line with late applicants, but there was no explanation for this.
“They were then told that they had to fill in application forms again and return sometime this week,” Monaledi said in an e-mail to News24.
Contact numbers
Monaledi said it was possible that her sisters’ Grade 11 marks were too low but stressed that the least university officials could have done was to communicate with her.
Muller told News24 that would-be students with problems such as these can contact the university and their problems will be handled as quickly as possible.
But when News24 used the phone numbers provided on the website and given by spokesperson Herman Esterhuizen (011 559 4555; 0681 00 0085; 011 559 2911), the numbers were continuously engaged.
Applicants will be put on a waiting list and should know by the end of the month if they have been accepted to the university.
