Despite week-long strike, SRC president still suspended

Historical debts, a shortage of water, postponed graduation ceremonies, the safety of off-campus students and the availability of tablets for first-year students are just some of the issues that led to the strike by University of Venda (Univen) students last week.

On Friday, 13 May, the Univen student representative council (SRC) sent a memorandum of grievances to the university’s executive management council (EMC) and gave them until Monday, 16 May, to respond.

In the memorandum, the SRC made several demands, the first being that management should attend to the issue of allowance disbursements, which include the NSFAS historical debts. The students also demanded that the 2022 autumn graduation be held between 23 and 27 May in the auditorium.

A contentious issue that the students wanted management to deal with is the distribution of computer tablets to first-year students. The demands include the issuing of tablets to the “missing middle” of 2021 and 2022 first-year students.

The students also demanded that part-time lecturers for various modules be appointed before Friday, 20 May.

The EMC’s response to these and the rest of their demands did not seem to satisfy the students. On the afternoon of Tuesday, 17 May, the students started to strike and ended up in a physical battle with the police.

One of the first-year students said she was terrified. “The police were shooting at us and throwing teargas. I was so scared and just wanted to go home,” she said.

The SRC president, Mr Smile Manganyi, said that the university’s management clearly did not take the students seriously. “The management doesn’t want students to graduate, and remember, some students are still owing the university. NSFAS must clear historical debts for those awaiting graduation. The university also failed to fix the library for the past three years. This shows that the university doesn’t take the students seriously,” he said. 

On Saturday, 21 May, the EMC suspended Manganyi for “Violating the university’s rules and regulations”.

On Sunday, 22 May, the SRC secretary, Mr Junior Magagula, wrote a letter to the university’s EMC, requesting the EMC to withdraw Manganyi’s suspension. In the letter, Magagula said that the suspension had been uncalled for. “If the SRC president is to be suspended, the whole SRC must be suspended,” it reads.

The university’s spokesperson, Dr Takalani Dzaga, responded to the request of withdrawing Manganyi’s suspension, saying that the SRC president had not only been suspended for mobilising and leading illegal protests but also for inciting violence and insulting the university’s management through social media and other platforms.

The last letter from the EMC, dated Monday, 23 May, seems to have settled everything. In summary, the management agreed to deal with the students’ grievances.

“The university management believes that the student demands have been adequately addressed and we are now expecting university business to return to normality. However, if students are to mobilize and continue to participate in any illegal protest action, the university management will be left with no other option but to take further legal steps to prevent any unwarranted disruptions for the university business to continue,” the letter concluded.

At the time of our going to press, it was not yet clear whether the strike was over or not, but Manganyi was still suspended.

Date:26 May 2022

By: Maanda Bele

Maanda  Bele, born and raised in Nzhelele Siloam, studied journalism at the Tshwane University of Technology.

He is passionate about current news and international affairs.

He worked as part of the Zoutnet team as an intern in 2017.

He is currently a freelance journalist specialising in news from the Vhembe district.

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