Staff Reporter
The University of Free State (UFS) will only allow access to its Bloemfontein campus to students who have to take face-to-face modules while the rest will have to study online.
UFS rector and vice-chancellor Professor Francis Petersen told a virtual media briefing on Thursday that while the university would have wanted to have more students on campus, disruptive protests by students at its Bloemfontein and QwaQwa campuses over the past few days have made this impossible.
The QwaQwa campus has since been closed and all students have been ordered to go home as a result of protests.
“If there are classes that need to be face-to-face or where there are practicals and other things involved . . . we will continue with those classes, but where modules and classes can continue online, they will be taken online,” said Petersen.
He said when the university started on Monday, at least 67 percent of the modules were being done face-to-face, but due to the disruptions, they had been forced to change.
“The QwaQwa students will not necessarily lose the academic project. They will continue (online). That is what we have done and our campuses are obviously calm today,” he added.
Sporadic incidents of disruption have been reported at both campuses as students have been staging protests over a host of issues they want authorities to address before normal classes can resume.
Demands in the two memoranda submitted by the students include catch-up plans for students who have not yet registered; a registration threshold increase to R30 000; that the university pays students some advance allowances as they await payment from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS); and the extension of registration for international students without study permits, among others.
The students submitted a memorandum to university management at the Bloemfontein and QwaQwa campuses but they were not happy with the response they received.
Petersen said the university made several concessions which were however not accepted by the students.
Some of the concessions include: allowing students who have previously registered for foundation programmes and those who have continued with mainstream programmes to register without the prerequisite of a first payment; permitting students with outstanding debt of up to R30 000 and who are awaiting NSFAS funding to register provisionally; and giving first-time students who have applied for NSFAS funding until 28 February 2022 to finalise their registration, among others.
Petersen said the university management will continue engaging with the students.
On Wednesday, Free State police said they had arrested 12 students at the UFS Bloemfontein campus after they disrupted classes.
According to a police statement, members of the Public Order Police Unit warned them not to disrupt classes but they continued.
Police then used stun grenades to disperse the group.
This saw eight male and four female students being arrested for public violence and contravention of a court order.
The arrests followed those of two females and a male last Friday.
On Tuesday, a 25-year-old male student was also arrested for disruptive behaviour.