CAPE TOWN – Students at the University of Cape Town (UCT) returned to lectures on campus beginning of the academic year after several days of protests over student debt. That came as an agreement between the UCT council and Student Representative Council (SRC) reaching an agreement.
The first week of lectures had been disrupted by hundreds of students blocking entry and marching on campus. That forced some lectures to move online. SRC members demanded that management gaveconcessions to financially excluded students who were academically eligible to register but unable to settle their outstanding debt.
In a statement earlier that time, Norman Arendse, chair of the UCT council, said that the university’s historic student debt currently stands at R864-million. The SRC and UCT jointly proposed on a case-by-case basis to consider, among others, students who were academically eligible but lost financial aid funding; students who had made significant partial payments to their 2024 debt; and students who secured loans or bursaries for 2025.
The last category had 1,189 students who were “self-funded” and had not made payment towards their fees, which the university deemed “high risk”. These students collectively owed UCT about R123-million. Arendse stressed that the university would not be “covering or waiving” the debt and that students would remain responsible for their own debt.
In a statement, the SRC said: “While this is an improvement from the initial position of the university executive, which had initially refused to grant any concessions, we maintain that more needs to be done. We remain unwavering in our commitment to ensuring that the doors of learning are open to all students, regardless of their financial background.”
Source: EWN with additional notes by SG
