A group of protesters blocked some entrances to the university at the Bloemfontein Campus and threatened registrations on the grounds that the management of the university has failed to address some of the challenges faced by students. According to the protesters, these include increased tuition and registration fees as well as cancellation of provisional registrations, amongst others.

The South African Students Congress (Sasco) has released a statement indicating that coupled with these challenges, students who are funded by NSFAS at the university are expected to settle their outstanding fees, prior to registration, whilst they cannot afford to. The organisation states that in its view this is an indication of a university that seeks to purge and deny poor students education.

Meanwhile, the university has sent an email to students acknowledging that registrations that took place in the Callie Human Centre were disrupted and temporarily suspended. The university, however, refutes allegations made by the protesters and says the statement released by Sasco included incorrect information.

“The amounts reflected in the statement by Sasco are incorrect and do not refer to registration fees, but rather to the first payment required in an academic year. Some students in the missing-middle group were accommodated by including the fee-gap grant as part of the first payment. This will again be done in 2019,” said the university.

Sasco had indicated that the university has increased fees for the poor and missing-middle from R1 900 to R7 000 and from R5 000 to R14 000 for on-campus students.

Following the protests yesterday, students and other social media users have taken to Twitter and Facebook to raise concerns over registrations at the university and whether the 2019 academic year will kick off smoothly.

The university’s head of communication, Lacea Loader, has assured OFM News of her response to a set of questions.

OFM News