Wits trying to ensure academic work resumes

22 September 2016

Johannesburg – The University of the Witwatersrand’s management is trying to ensure normal operations resume at the institution.

Its executive committee met on Wednesday to discuss the violence on its campuses and to find ways to resume the academic programme, deputy vice-chancellor Tawana Kupe told reporters.

Work was suspended for the week on Tuesday evening, after students and private security guards threw rocks at one another outside the Great Hall, on the East campus. Ten students and 14 guards were injured.

On Wednesday, students threw rocks and police, who retaliated with rubber bullets and stun grenades outside the Wits Theatre entrance.

Students had tried to march around Braamfontein in the hope of getting more students to join them. Police stopped them.

Kupe said the parties needed to talk, as violence was not a solution.

“We are not defeatists. There is a different way around this through dialogue, putting up a proposal and engaging with those proposals,” he said.

This article first appeared on News24, see here.