06 Mar 2013

Limkongkwing University of Creative Technology has reopened and normal lessons commenced Wednesday morning (March 6), even though issues that led to the students’ revolt and the school closure have not been resolved.

Limkongkwing Regional Director for Corporate, Industry and Media Relations, Ms Mercy Thebe, said the process of re-registering returning students was completed Tuesday.

She said normal classes had begun, despite the impasse on book allowances, the institution's textbook swiping system, and the diversion of book loans to the school’s bookshop.

“Classes have begun, and 92 per cent of the students have completed the re-registering process,” Ms Thebe said in an interview, while admitting that they had not solved students’ grievances.

“As management we have been having meetings to address the bookshop issue with students’ representatives and their sponsors for a while now, and we will continue to address that issue,” she added.

But she called the strike illegal, and said that over time they would be looking at taking action against what they felt were rogue elements among the students. “We hold discipline in high regard and as part of students’ development. We are in possession of evidence that some Student Representative Council (SRC) leaders on Monday blocked other students at the gate and incited them not to register,” she said.

But she said the re-registration process as well as a memorandum that students had to sign when re-registering was not part of a witch hunt for punitive measures against those who engaged in the strike. Ms Thebe said that as management they needed to collate data purely for administrative purposes. 

SRC President Poloko Pitwane admitted that while most students were back on campus they were displeased that their issues had not been addressed. “We are returning to school with a heavy heart.

The bookshop has failed to meet the students’ needs for educational material, and we were asking to be given a choice to purchase our learning material elsewhere. Management has turned a blind eye to this,” he said.

He was also displeased that management had not acceded to their request for an extension of re-registration until Friday. “We instructed our legal team to ask management to extend re-registration, but they have not responded as yet,” Mr Pitwane said.

Ms Thebe said that since they were in possession of evidence that the SRC had instructed students not to re-register because signing the memorandum amounted to an admission of guilt, they could not accede to the demand to extend for an extension.

But the SRC president dismissed allegations that the SRC incited students not to register. “It is the students who asked us to find out the consequences of signing the memorandum. But the legal advice we got from our lawyers was that there would be nothing in the memorandum that could get students into trouble legally, so we accepted re-registration,” he said.

Ms Thebe said the students who had not re-registered would be considered “with each individual case” on the merits of their explanations as to why they had not, before they would be allowed to resume classes. ENDS