THOHOYANDOU - Turmoil at the University of Venda for Science and Technology led to the arrest of 73 students and the closure of the university for a while last Thursday.

Students, led by SASCO, protested against the 40% fee increment for registration. When the situation started to get out of hand, the police arrested 73 students, who were allegedly smashing windowpanes with stones.

The case against those 73 students was withdrawn in the Thohoyandou Magistrate’s Court last Friday. On Saturday, a large number of students were graduating and the auditorium was besieged by policemen. According to a spokesperson for SASCO, the payment schedule imposed by the management on poor students and the registration fee for the second semester are unreasonable. “The allocations that the University of Venda students get from this financial aid scheme are not assisting students, but rather frustrate poor students,” they said.

They further said the university had more than 7 000 students at the first semester and now it has less than 2000 registered students, with the remainder just attending classes, uncertain of what will happen to their future. “As a result of the university’s failure to raise funds to run its affairs, they resorted to raising fees by 32% without consulting the students,” they added. According to them, the university’s only source of revenue is the government’s grant and the students’ contributions.

The University of Venda responded that they decided to close the institution, seeing that students were vandalizing property on the campus. The director of public relations, Mr Rufus Kharidzha, said the University was still going to have some talks with the students.