THOHOYANDOU - All academic activities were suspended at the University of Venda on Wednesday, when the Vice Chancellor and Principal Prof GM Nkondo addressed students and members of staff on the thorny issue of the Restructuring of the Higher Education System in South Africa.

The meeting took place at the University Stadium. It follows the report by the National Working Group for Higher Education and was attended by approximately two thousand students and all academic and administrative staff.

The report stating that the University of Venda will merge with the University of the North and Medunsa into a unitary institution, was rejected strongly by Prof Nkondo. He said that the implementing of this report would only entrench the imbalances of the old apartheid system and the resources of the Historically White Universities (HWU's) would not be shared with the Historically Disadvantaged Universities (HDU's).

All university structures were to bring out reports before a meeting of all Vice Chancelors of the HDU's whereafter a consultation will be held with Education Minister, Kader Asmal to influence him to reconsider the merging. The matter was urgent since the cabinet would decide on the report in March. Prof Nkondo said that the merger of the three universities could result in retrenchments.

The report "Recommendations of the NWG for the Higher Education in the Northern Province" was released on Monday, February 11. "The analysis undertaken by the NWG suggests that, with the merger of the university of the North, the University of Venda and Medunsa one could expect a new multi-campus institution with a sustainable size of about 16000 head count enrolments" reads page 33 of the report.

The report also recommends that all the colleges of nursing and agriculture of the province should be incorporated into the new institution. It is further recommended that the new institution should extend the range of offerings available in the province by developing and introducing technikon-type vocational programmes and qualifications, in keeping with the need profile of the region and preferably in such a way that different types of educational strengths would be concentrated on different campuses.