By: Bongekile Gumede
The Durban University of Technology has shut down all five campuses after students invaded the sports centre on the Steve Biko campus.
The university management made an announcement on Wednesday morning in a statement, following what they believed to be a risk to health, safety and security.
This comes after the university’s campuses were in uproar, on Tuesday, as large numbers of students queued in lines and filled up the sports centre hoping to be registered for various courses which allegedly had space for more intake.
This led to the university suspending all its on-campus support for online registration, indefinitely, however, normal online registration will continue in the manner it has been all along, without on-campus support as means to do away with the influx of uninvited people on campus and violating the Covid-19 protocols.
According to DUT’s management over Tuesday night, a significant number of people continued to occupy the sports centre and refused the request to leave campus. “Over the course of Wednesday morning, the situation escalated with protestors milling around outside the Steve Biko campus, hurling stones at buildings, damaging university property, barricading public roads, including several attempts to invade more buildings on campus. The University therefore has called on all of the relevant law enforcement agencies to assist in calming this potentially dangerous situation. It has become clear that the situation is tough to contain and it is being exacerbated with increasing numbers of people trying to force their way onto many other parts of the Durban campuses. This also poses a bigger threat for Covid-19 infections,” read a statement released on Wednesday morning.
The statement followed another one released on Tuesday night where the management stated that only online registrations will continue. The statement read: “The university has been exploring strategies to deal with the challenge of the slow pace of registration of first time entering (FTEN) students, for various reasons including their challenges with our online registrations system. The number of returning students who have registered has been largely met and does not appear to be a problem at this stage. “As part of the strategies to deal with this slow challenge with FTEN registrations, the University decided to decentralise the on-campus registration support, in order to assist those applicants who were struggling to complete their online registration. Many of those who had required assistance with their online registration had either experienced internet access challenges at their homes or they had faced delays due to funding concerns. The on-campus support facilities were specifically implemented to assist this group of students, many of whom, were FTEN students.”
Last week the University issued an email communication from the deputy vice-chancellor of teaching and learning to faculties, sharing several strategies on how the university would quicken the pace. The vice-chancellor suggested enlisting professionalised call centre services, in addition to university’sfaculty-based initiatives and supported this by saying that the service would help to reach out to all students with firm offers, students on waiting lists and other qualifying students that could have approached them since registration started. The statement further stated that it appeared that a social media post which was unofficial went viral, inviting all applicants to come to the campuses on 6 April. “Many potential applicants arrived at our gates, expecting to be registered. These persons were not invited by the university to register, nor given any indication that they were to arrive at the university. All along, the university has been using a strict Covid-19 compliant system where those struggling with our online registration would report their experiences via the telephone, and, where necessary, be invited and granted permits. As a result, all our registration venues, including the sports centre, have been orderly and Covid-19 compliant.
The social media and fake text message invitations resulted in a large-scale influx of persons onto the campuses resulting in the violation of the Covid-19 guidelines as a result of the campus invasion by a large number of people.” The university said that they will contact all first-year applicants who received firm offers to study at DUT but for whatever reason, have not registered as yet. The university will directly consult with the group of applicants and advise them accordingly.
