“We will postpone the General Assembly till consensus is met,” Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Wits, Adam Habib, said during a briefing at the university.

On Tuesday, Wits management postponed the academic programme and agreed to hold a General Assembly with students, staff members and alumini to reach an agreement on the way forward.

“This week, we suspended the academic programme and dedicated all our resources towards building a consensus within the University community in order to be able to resume the academic programme on Monday. We had reached consensus with all University constituencies including Council, Senate, Convocation, labour and staff, but not with the protesting students,” Habib said, reading a statement that was sent to students and staff members in the early hours of Friday morning.

Habib recalled the events that took place on campus with staff returning on Monday and Tuesday amid more security being brought onto campus and as violent protest action continued.

“We felt opening an negotiated outcome would be in the best interest of the country. We gave it one more try. Those negotiations went on till 3:30am this morning,” Habib said.

Wits management said despite all their attempts and the engagement of former Black Student Society and SRC leaders, the mediation process with the protesting students was unsuccessful.

“A congregation of the General Assembly is called when the University community has reached consensus on a particular issue. In this case, there has been no consensus from all constituencies and no agreement from the protesting students that the academic programme will continue on Monday,” Habib said.

“The protesting students effectively want the General Assembly and the march to the Constitutional Court to continue, without committing that the academic programme will commence on Monday, as previously promised.”

Wits management had made a pledge, that would have been signed at the end of the General Assembly, on the access to Higher education and in which the University agreed that free, fully funded, quality, decolonisation higher education was possible and that they would approach government with a united voice for the realisation of the students’ goals.

The protests that have taken place at various universities in South Africa, started more than two weeks ago after Higher Education Minister, Blade Nzimande, announced that universities would be allowed to hike next year’s fees up to a capped eight percent. Poor students and those from the so-called “missing middle” and whose household income did not exceed R600,000 would be exempt from the fee increase.

ANA