Vital WSU meeting cancelled amid student upheavals

A vital meeting today between Walter Sisulu University and parents of SRC members on the Mthatha campus did not take place.

The meeting was to decide on the way forward for the campus which has stopped functioning amid student upheavals.

The meeting was cancelled because of the absence of the university vice-chancellor Professor Rob Midgley.

The meeting started yesterday but was adjourned before a decision was reached.

Parents of the SRC members were then requested to form a task team that would meet with WSU management to decide when students should return to classes.

Students at the Mthatha campus’s Nelson Mandela Drive and Zamukulungisa sites were evicted last week after the university obtained a court order against them.

SRC president Sinelizwi Mantangayi said parents arrived at the Nelson Mandela Drive this morning, “but the vice-chancellor was not there and the meeting could not take place,” he said.

Mantangayi said they were still not sure when the meeting would take place.

The impasse at the campus has hit a few months before students write their end-of-year examinations.

Students were evicted from the university residences after it was closed amid violent protest which disrupted the academic programme.