THE University of the Western Cape appears to have borne the brunt of university protests, with damage to its property coming with an estimated R20m price tag.
This is according to university spokesman Luthando Tyhalibongo, who could not say whether the university had instituted any insurance claim.
His comments came as Minister of Higher Education and Training Blade Nzimande announced that the total cost of damage to university properties across the country was R150m.
In depth: Fees must fall
News, views and analysis of SA's 2015 student protests against fee increases
In Johannesburg on Wednesday, after a meeting with all 26 vice-chancellors of SA’s state-subsidised universities, Mr Nzimande called on students to register and start the academic year. "Damage to property is unacceptable; we can’t afford more damage to institutional assets.... The current cost of security to protect the functioning of institutions is exorbitant."
Earlier this week, University of Johannesburg vice-chancellor Ihron Rensburg said some institutions in Gauteng were spending between R1.5m and R2m a month on additional security, which was not sustainable. He spoke as vice-chancellors of universities in Gauteng appealed to students to respect the rights of others to access at the universities and to desist from violent and disruptive protests.
On Wednesday, Mr Nzimande also met with representatives from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), whose chairman Sizwe Nxasana said the proposed new funding model would go beyond the "crude" means test the scheme uses. The model would focus not only on the "missing middle", but on all the students who qualified for NSFAS, he said. The "missing middle" of students are those whose family income is too high for them to qualify for state financial aid, but too low for the students to afford fees. Mr Nxasana said the idea was that a new model would be rolled out across SA’s universities in 2018.
Protests by students under the #FeesMustFall banner took hold across university campuses at the end of last year.
Many of the protests turned violent as students attacked and set fire to university property at the universities of Johannesburg, Wits, Rhodes, Cape Town, Fort Hare, KwaZulu-Natal, Venda, and at the Tshwane University of Technology.
The property damaged by protesting University of the Western Cape students included a cafeteria and residence hall that were torched. The damage is almost double the amount the university estimated in November, when it expected to fork out between R10m and R12m for repairs.
No damage estimates were available from Wits University, whose students were credited with getting the #FeesMustFall campaign under way.
State-owned insurance company Sasria said on Wednesday it had received nearly 100 claims, worth a total of more than R22m, resulting from the #FeesMustFall protests.
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