The university’s spokesperson, Dan Maritz, says the institution had met with organised labour and student leaders from both campuses in Bloemfontein and Welkom. He says in the meeting, management supported the recommendation by the Covid-19 Incident Management Task Team  (IMTT) for an early recess. Maritz says this means that academic activities will be suspended with effect from Wednesday 7 July 2021 at 12:00, until Friday 16 July 2021.

“We have made a call that we should ensure the safety of our students and staff by starting the recess earlier than expected. As we know, the Delta variant is continuing to spread all over the country at this point in time. And after the effect of this unfortunate incident on campus caused by our students, this holds a risk to the university to become a super-spreader and that is why we had to make this call,” he adds.

Meanwhile, student activist, Moeketsi Moeketsi, says students had anticipated the move by the institution for an early recess.

“Even if you can read their statement you can see their intention is to make a point that no students [are allowed] on campus in order to end the protests,” Moeketsi adds.

However, Maritz says the recess decision is in the best interest of the university to bring about stability on both campuses, but also to mitigate and limit the spread of infections due to continual transgression of the Level 4 Covid-19 lockdown provisions by these students.

“Management has established a task team to implement further strategies and measures to bring stability to our campuses; to ensure the safety of employees and students, and to restore sound behaviour of all aligned with the Code of Conduct in order to ensure a conducive environment for teaching and learning.

The academic activities will be placed in abeyance for the duration of the early recess. The recess period will be used for formulating feasible solutions to the recurring student-related matters,” he further adds.

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