Cape Town – Exams at Stellenbosch University (SU) have been postponed by a week, following a shocking case of racism and the rape of a student on campus.
Professor Deresh Ramjugernath, deputy vice-chancellor of learning and teaching, said the decision followed an unprecedented, unified request from all student leadership structures.
The university also sympathised with those for whom the decision would cause disruption, he said.
“The university announced on Friday that the exams would be postponed from their scheduled start on Monday, May 23 and would now start on Monday, May 30.
“Assessments which had deadlines for this week would also be extended by one week and the normal university schedule will resume after these exams,” SU said.
“The examination rescheduling was made in the context of the trauma and disruption following the Huis Marais incident, and the separate rape incident – both of which the university condemned, along with all crimes and infringements on human rights and dignity.”
Ramjugernath said all student leadership structures including the student representative council and student societies had met as a group on Thursday night.
He said it was the first time ever that there had been a unified meeting of all the student leadership structures at the institution.
“They also understood that obviously a request of this nature would cause disruption because plans had already been made in terms of travel and so forth,” Ramjugernath said, adding that the institution approached the decision by accepting “that we understand that there’s been significant trauma and discomfort and our students are in a challenging mental state, in an emotional state where it’s difficult for them to write the exams come Monday.”
The rectorate had consulted on the request made at an emergency learning and teaching workstream meeting that included the deans and vice-deans of learning and teaching.
“We discussed the various options and whether we had support from the faculty leadership that were in the learning and teaching workstream for the request. There was overwhelming support for it from all the representatives from the faculties within the learning and teaching workstream,” Ramjugernath said.
Cape Times