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With university management and Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande seemingly unable to stem the flare of violent protests across universities, a group of prominent South Africans has offered to step in and mediate.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation, Brand South Africa, Ahmed Kathrada Foundation and the Social Cohesion Reference Group have offered to mediate between universities and students in order to restore peace at institutions of higher learning.
The offer to mediate between students and management of universities comes on the back of racial tensions, a popular unrest and a combustible atmosphere sweeping across a number of universities. These have led to the closure of a number of campuses, including the Tshwane University of Technology Soshanguvhe Campus, universities of Pretoria, Cape Town, Free State and the Mahikeng campus of the University of North West.
On Wednesday evening, angry students torched a science centre and a library at the Mahikeng campus.
The team, led by former Constitutional Court judge Yvonne Mogoro, said it has become clear that there are fundamental fractures in universities.
Addressing the media in Houghton, Johannesburg, Mogoro said: “There are dividing lines between management and students, between academics and also between students. In this atmosphere of tension and distrust, those that suffer most are the students and their families. Civil society has mostly been quiet. This was seen as a university matter and for those in civil society, intervention has been difficult. With this in mind, a group of active citizens have offered their services to providing intervention and mediation services to the universities.”
In the past civil society has been instrumental in breaking difficult impasses. “We need to find a solution. If a university burns to the ground we all lose. Those who are deprived of an education lose. We cannot allow it, we must declare a crisis and act accordingly,” Mogoro said.
Sello Hatang, chief executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation said it was critical to label what is going on as a “crisis”.
“We always say something is wrong, but are afraid to label it. There are deep levels of alienation, and that has to be declared as a crisis. Transformation hasn’t gone deep enough. Until we have deep conversations and name things what they are, we will be back where we are,” said Hatang.
Nzimande took to social media site Twitter this morning to get people to ask him questions about his department. He promised to respond on Monday.
But his Twitter campaign prompted an angry outpouring from South Africans who were disappointed that he hadn’t intervened in the university crisis.
Click here to read some of the reactions to #AskBlade
