Do you guys wanna hear what the biggest issues are now which I feel may have been delaying Minister Blades address?

Okay so, Most of you are all at home as result of a multi stakeholder higher education sectoral meeting that resolved that all Universities must go on an early recess a couple of days before the announcement of the first lockdown.

The first problem is that between then and now, the Minister hasn’t made any public statements or regulated much under the Disaster Act. This has left room for universities to move separately, thus began the collapse of the “united higher education” we envisaged as a Task Team.

WIth the sector moving towards the implementation of online learning we see how only the more privileged institutions are marching forward looking to complete the academic year without a single care for moving forward as a sector.

It is unfortunate that Wits, UJ, UP can communicate how ready they are for Online learning where some institutions like Forthare have declared that for them, this is just not an option that is viable. They simply don’t have the capacity,financial or otherwise.

What would it mean for the sector to only produce graduates from the former white institutions but none from our Historically Disadvantaged Institutions? If not now, when will these glaring different capabilities of our institutions be addressed?

As a solution, we raised in the task team that it may be time for the Minister to start regulating Universities instead of giving them guidelines. Guidelines leave alot of wiggle room as we have seen, regulations are law and every VC must follow the laws under the disaster Act.

This is not the time for VC exceptionalism. This is not the time to prove to each other which amongst them is the best institution in Africa. Now is the time to ensure that we make it through this pandemic together as a sector.

If the minister fails to unite the sector, online learning as a solution will not survive. That I am sure of.

Any solution that is brought forward must ensure that it leaves no casualties, no student must fall through the cracks.

Being poor and/or being differently abled can not be the reason why one loses an academic year. The fact that one is enrolled at an Historically Disadvantaged Institution can’t be the reason why their dreams must be deferred.

One of the biggest mistakes we can make as a student movement is to want everything to go back to normal, because if we are honest, that normal should have never been normal.The difference between UCT and Univen,resource wise, should have never been normalized.

The solution here is that government needs to put money on the table “supporting institutions at this time” can’t mean holding their hands. It must have some serious financial intervention to If they can’t then everyone must die. It wouldn’t be fair if only the rich continue.

At this critical time of crises, all of our interest should be and must be focused on levelling the playing fields such that all students and all institutions, rich and poor, are given equal opportunity to perform.

Ordinarily Blade technically can’t tell institutions what to do because they have institutional autonomy BUT these are not ordinary time, we are under the disaster act now

Blade has the power