Academic activities at the University of Fort Hare’s (UFH) Alice Campus in the Eastern Cape remain disrupted as students protest against the amendment of the Student Governance Constitution without the involvement of an elected Student Representative Council (SRC).

Online classes at the campus continue.

The protest follows the institution’s announcement that an interim SRC will be appointed during the amendment of the constitution.

The students demand that a democratically elected SRC should be part of the amendment of the constitution, alleging that the interim SRC will be hand picked according to interests of the management.

Student Leader Asonele Magwaxaza says, “Interim SRC is not student centered, those people are not democratically elected, they are installed by the management. They will definitely be controlled by the management, they will not be bothered in serving students. That will be a huge compromise for students starting from the registration period, we are starting registration early next year. There are exclusions meetings and those people will therefore be controlled.”

University of Fort Hare spokesperson JP Roodt says the decision to establish the interim SRC was made by the university’s council and refutes claims that the institution’ security is weak.

Roodt says, “In relation to the SRC it was university council that established an interim SRC while the SRC constitution is being finalised and free elections will follow. In relation to crime, we have seen statistically that crime is trending down at each night shift and day shift we have 64 guards patrolling.”