The violence and disruption of the higher education national convention called by retired deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke was “totally unacceptable” and a lost opportunity for students to express their views on the thorny issue of fees, South Africa Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Friday.

“What the whole nation saw was a very ugly scene at a convention that had been called to find solutions with all role players, particularly the students themselves. This was a great platform, a great opportunity for them to consolidate their views and put them across in a very organised way,” Ramaphosa told journalists at the National Skills Conference in Pretoria on Friday.

“That is a forum led by an eminent person in our country, a former deputy chief justice. That convention could not go ahead … that is totally unacceptable. It is unacceptable, the type of unruly behaviour when we are trying to find solutions and to craft ways of charting a way forward for the future of our students.”

Ramaphosa emphasised that the unruly behaviour witnessed at the convention had no place in a civilised South Africa, and could not be tolerated.

“With chairs flying around, people being assaulted and water bottles all over … we cannot have a South Africa of unruly people. We are supposed to be a South Africa of people who are disciplined, people who are able to tolerate one another, and to tolerate divergent and different views. More importantly, we should be a South Africa of people who always, in adverse conditions, find solutions,” said Ramaphosa.

“Even the most intractable problems should find a way of being solved. That is how we got where we are as a nation. This is what defines us. That is how I became so unhappy with what I saw on television depicting a very ugly side of South Africa. This is not us. That is not how we are and that is not how we have evolved to be as a nation.”

The deputy president said the numerous problems bedevilling the higher education sector in South Africa would not be solved “by breaking chairs and throwing bottles around”.

“You resolve problems by sitting down and talking them through. That is how we resolve problems and that is how we should resolve this one,” said Ramaphosa.

Moseneke had to call off the two-day national convention after repeated incidents of violent disruptions. The convention, which was held at the Eskom Learning Academy, was meant to zoom into various issues affecting the embattled higher education sector.

Other student formations refused to let AfriForum address the gathering.