Students recently held a mass meeting in the Bellville campus Student Centre of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) to discuss matters that affect students, ranging from financial aid to student accommodation.

 

Students have been complaining about the National Students Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) that has failed them in so many ways. They are not pleased with how their applications are being handled by the NSFAS officers, whom they accuse of taking their time to respond… if they respond at all. Some applicants are left in the dark as to whether they need to find other ways of paying their fees on their own.

 

Some students complained about the slowness of the process of residence room allocation. Some of them are from places as far as the Eastern Cape and they have no-one to turn to for accommodation in Cape Town. Rent is too expensive for many. Mihle Manciya, who is the CPUT Central President of the Student Representative Council (SRC), also attended the meeting as he was going to address the students later. He listened as students took to the stage, each stating their case one by one.

 

One of the concerns was the issue of the annual fee increment. It’s a bit ridiculous that the institution expects them to pay such large amounts of money while the services they receive from the institution don’t match the cost. One of the South African Student Congress (SASCO) members Ngqandu Qhawe Phakamisa also had a few complaints to raise: “CPUT student residences are a home-away-from-home to some students but are not suitable for living.” He went on to say that the ‘living conditions are limiting the students as they go about their expected daily activities’.

 

Manciya, who is also a member of SASCO, took the stage and answered questions. In regard to NSFAS, he said: “Students are suffering because the SRC from Bellville campus [which is led by the Pan Africanist Students Movement of Azania (PASMA)] has been quiet and doesn’t attend meetings that are held with the institution’s management.”

 

PASMA responded to these accusations by pointing out that ‘SASCO leads at least three campuses of CPUT’ and PASMA only one. They added that SASCO has about four members on the decision-making council while PASMA has only two… so it is ‘unfair of SASCO to accuse them of not attending the meetings and causing students to suffer whereas they (SASCO) are the ones with the power and means to make decisions as to which direction can be taken to make things better in this institution’.