Daily News reports that with a staff strike at the Durban University of Technology (DUT) raging for more than five weeks, students are angry that lectures have not started.
The National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) and the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) are locked in a battle with DUT over salary increases and housing allowances. On Wednesday, a group of about 60 students held a meeting on campus and expressed their frustrations. A second-year industrial engineering student said he had to constantly travel from KwaDukuza by train to Durban to see if lectures had started. “It makes me very angry. At home they don’t understand why we haven’t started studying. They are thinking I am coming to university to just waste money,” he said. Snoxolo Mahlatshana of the SA Students Congress (Sasco) at DUT said the strike had caused a delay in the registration process. Alan Khan, senior director of corporate affairs at DUT, said orientation sessions and a large number of programmes began on Tuesday. “However, the strike is affecting a number of courses and in those programmes, where staff are still on strike, there were no lectures. In these affected programmes, lectures can only commence once the staff return to work,” Khan indicated.
- Read this report by Mphathi Nxumaloin full at Daily News
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