EFF to 'assist' with varsity registrations

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Eastern Cape EFF convener Yazini Tetyana said on Saturday that they would, over the next two days, visit state hospitals across the province to address the shortage of healthcare in rural areas.

This would be followed by EFF members going to the province's four universities and several TVET colleges to assist with registration.

"All tertiary institutions should be open for walk-ins and fighters are to make sure that no one is left behind. Free education in our time," Tetyana said.

This is contrary to the call made by Universities South Africa (USA) that institutions would not allow walk-in registrations for the new academic year.

Rhodes University spokeswoman Veliswa Mhlope said while they discouraged walk-ins, they were committed to helping students who had done well to access higher education.

"Those who meet our admission criteria in degree programmes in which we may still have spaces will not be turned away," she said.

USA's call followed the announcement by President Jacob Zuma that tertiary education would be free to pupils from households with an income of less than R350,000 a year.

EFF president Julius Malema urged matriculants who passed in previous years but who could not afford university fees to report to academic institutions today.

However, Mhlope said: "In line with the statement issued by Universities SA, we discourage walk-in applications.

"They create a significant risk of stampede while the chances of being admitted into a programme that is already oversubscribed are almost nil."

Mhlope said if more students arrived than anticipated, Rhodes staff could help them to find out if there were spaces in their chosen fields still available at other universities.

Yesterday, Tetyana said there should be spots available in most tertiary courses as not everyone who had registered initially would follow through.

"When you apply the university asks what your first, second and third options of study are," he said.

"You can only enrol in one, so automatically space is free in the other two. So we will find a place for every person wanting to study."

Mhlope said Rhodes would register about 1,800 first-year students.

Nelson Mandela, Fort Hare and Walter Sisulu universities failed to respond to questions by yesterday.

Source: Herald