Cape Town - Hundreds of Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) students are continuing to sleep in the university’s Multipurpose Hall at the District Six campus, while the university processes eligible students for accommodation.
On Tuesday, more than 100 students at the CPUT Bellville campus were removed from the university’s Student Centre by campus security.
Many of those at the centre were first year students with pending statuses on their residence applications.
Speaking at the District Six campus yesterday, EFF Student Command task team member assisting the students, Xolani Booi, attributed the accommodation crisis to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme’s (NSFAS) accommodation pilot project. In terms of the scheme, NSFAS would take over the accreditation and renting of accommodation with private landlords, taking this function away from universities.
“The problem they are now facing is that they (NSFAS) did not fix their software or technology to be able to do that system and the requirements they put in for private landlords were too steep. They wanted 5% from the landlords, they wanted some papers from the municipality, the landlords could not get those things in time because they were only told in December.
“So when we arrived now in January, the landlords didn't want to take any CPUT students.
“So about 5 000 students who were staying in private accommodation didn't have a place to stay.
“The university did not budget for them because they were not part of their system.
“They know that they can only accommodate 15 000 from our records that we know of.”
This has now left returning students, first years and those appealing their results, stranded without accommodation, crammed inside halls and other university spaces.
“We’d like to urge parents to also take some responsibility for their children. It's not enough these days just to give a child bus fare money to go to university and you don't know what the child is eating, how they’re sleeping and you want to always play the blame game.
“Because now it's only student leaders who must go and look for food for these students, make sure they bathe.
“Make sure everything is taken care of and negotiate with management, because they were not part of the plan.
“Some don't even have anything, they only had a bus ticket just to come here with their suitcase.”
Meanwhile, the CPUT Financial Aid Office said via email that CPUT would be exempted from the NSFAS accommodation pilot project and that the office would be facilitating unaccredited private accommodation for 2024.
Applications for this opened on Tuesday until March 2.
CPUT spokesperson Lauren Kansley said that CPUT had relocated 100 students to accommodation on Tuesday night and 70 more female students last night.
“The process of allocating more students into temporary and permanent housing is being threatened by so-called student leaders who are encouraging qualifying students not to accept these accommodation offerings.”
Kansley said a full audit of those at the Bellville and District Six campus was conducted yesterday.
“Using these figures we will establish who legitimate applicants are and who is not eligible for a place in residence.”
On the NSFAS pilot project exemption, she said: “We are optimistic that this positive development will smooth the process of accommodating these remaining unplaced applicants.”