Day of protests in Cape Town tomorrow
Staff, students and a political party to demand a resolution to the university crisis
UCT students and workers marched to parliament in October 2015 to hand over a memorandum of demands. Photo: Masixole Feni
By GroundUp Staff
25 October 2016
Students, staff, workers and a political party plan to march to Parliament tomorrow ahead of embattled Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s mid-term budget speech.
Here is a breakdown of who is marching, when they are marching and what they are marching for, in order of the time of protest:
9am: The University of Cape Town’s (UCT’s) three unions (Employees’ Union, NEHAWU and the Academics’ Union) will picket outside Parliament on the corner of Plein and Roeland Streets.
The memo they will be handing over to a representative from Parliament states:
“We call on all university staff, students, parents, civil society and the community to demand that Government urgently address the crisis in the South African university and education sectors. For many years, universities have been chronically under-funded by Government and support for students has been inadequate. Increasingly high fees, a lack of transformation and a challenging environment have placed higher education out of reach for many of our most promising youth, while those who are admitted must succeed and excel while subjected to extraordinarily difficult circumstances … The events of recent weeks highlight that universities are not able to solve these problems alone. Government needs to be part of the discussion and part of the solution.”
10am: Fees Must Fall Western Cape: This movement incorporates Fees Must Fall student protesters from UCT, the University of the Western Cape (UWC), the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) and Stellenbosch University.
Calling Wednesday’s march “the most important gathering in the history of South Africa” the students are marching for “free decolonised education”. They are set to meet at 10am at CPUT Cape Town campus.
10am: #OutsourcingMustFall: Workers from a variety of organisations including the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP), Community Health Care Workers (CHCW) and Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges are expected to march to parliament calling for an end to outsourcing, a minimum wage of R10,000 a month and free quality education. They plan to begin marching from Keizersgracht Street at 10am.
11am: The Democratic Alliance (DA) plans to picket outside Parliament at 11am. The political party is demanding free education for poor students and support for the “missing middle”. They are also calling for “open and safe universities”. DASO UCT will be marching from CPUT at 11am and will then make their way to Parliament.
Update:
The times above are subject to change as a result of meetings between the City, relevant authorities and the organisations held today.
It is possible that the DA march will be at 10am not 11am and the various fees protests at 1pm not 10am
