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The DA urges University Management, the Department of Higher Education and SAPS to work together to ensure that students and staff are safe so that campuses across the country can re-open this week.

This follows reports that many campuses will remain closed, including the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and University of Cape Town, further preventing students from accessing higher education.

According to a note sent out from Wits, their decision to remain closed this week is based on real threats to the safety of students and staff. Indeed, evidence of petrol bombs have been discovered on campus, revealing a condemnable intent by some students to destroy university property.

According this letter, threats like these emanate from a small group of individuals who have deliberately sought to shut down campuses, using intimidation and violence.

This situation cannot be allowed to continue. The overwhelming majority of students who want to learn and prepare for exams are having their own rights undermined by the conduct of few individuals, who have no care for the law and the rights of others.

It is telling that ANC aligned student groupings have supported this illegal conduct, instead of taking their protests to their own organisation – the real sponsors of this funding crisis. It leaves me equally angered that ANC Secretary General, Gwede Mantashe, and the Minister of Higher Education, Blade Nzimande, support closing down universities in order to deal with the crisis, to “teach students a lesson”. Closing down access to higher education can never be a solution.

Those few students who continue to break the law by intimidation, threatening the lives of others, and destroying public and private property must be brought to book through our criminal justice system. Their conduct constitutes a criminal offence, and they should be arrested and face prosecution.

Indeed, a central principle of our Constitution is the Rule of Law. This must be respected in all instances.

Keeping our universities open and ensuring the safety of students and staff on campuses does not detract from the legitimate fight for more funding in higher education. The DA shares the anger and frustration which so many young people are feeling around South Africa today, almost all of whom are not involved in the campus shut-downs. With rising unemployment, less opportunities, and completely inadequate funding, many young people are losing hope. This needs to be urgently addressed in the short and long term.

Both the DA, and the party’s student organisation, DASO, have made it clear that no student should be denied an education just because they are poor. Higher education must be made a top priority by government to ensure that this happens. It remains the most powerful weapon to address poverty and inequality and must be budgeted for as such. The DA will continue with this fight, using every mechanism available to us.

Closing down campuses, however, is not the solution and will only add to the crisis our country faces today. It is time to re-open our campuses so that the fight for free higher education for the poor does not hurt the very people we need to help.

Issued by DA