Student protests continue as they took their fight to Luthuli house where they voiced out their demands.

The demands from the memorandum include:

• No student must be financially excluded in 2021
• No Fee increment for 2021
• The Commencement of the academic year to be postponed on the 30th of March in order to equip first years with skills related to computer literacy
• The distribution of laptops to all students in need immediately
• The removal of the 75% upfront for African International students
• Every student who was given a residence offer be permitted to occupy the res ASAP
• NSFAS to pay for its beneficiaries by the end of each academic year

Students have said that they will stand firm with their demands and have mentioned that they looking to hold the ruling party accountable and that words are not enough and are now demanding action.

The University of Pretoria’s SRC has also joined to march in the fight against exclusion in education, the students marched on Es’kia Mphahlele to the Department of Higher Education and Training in Pretoria to submit the memorandum of demand.

Students are demanding to put stop to the maladministration taking place at the NSFAS offices and are demanding for NSFAS to respond to the first-year students about whether they will be funded or not.

They have also mentioned that they demanding that NSFAS responds to senior students about their application statuses.

Wits Students continued their march to the Constitutional Hill to launch an urgent application and to hand in a memorandum of demand, calling for the scrapping of Historical debts.

Wits SRC president Mpendulo Mfeka, has called on the ConCourt to start being active on student matters.

Women within higher education institutions have been taking up more leadership and management roles. This is in a bid to encourage and promote equality within higher education institutions.

The Higher Education Leadership and Management (HELM) launched an initiative aimed at empowering women for change in higher education. An initiative which will include 26 women from 17 public universities in a six-month-long Women in Leadership (WiL) programme.

The programme is a collaboration between HELM with the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), British Council, Advance HE and the United Kingdom’s University of Bath.

“WiL recognises that gender equity and women’s access to executive and management positions in universities is a major challenge in South Africa and on the African continent. It is therefore intended to promote the rights of women and afford them opportunities to reach their full potential.”

The programme was launched on the 1st of September and its focus will be on a variety of disciplines at different levels of leadership at their institutions. Included among them are executive deans, heads of schools and academic programmes, senior lecturers, directors: research and deputy vice-chancellor.

“We are looking for #YoungTeachers please apply so that we can defeat youth unemployment together”, Gauteng MEC for Education Panyaza Lesufi