Statement by the VC of UCT regarding exams and urging the State to act with restraint.

1. 22 October2015
UCT today and exams
Statement by UCT Vice-Chancellor Dr Max Price
The situation at the University of Cape Town and on all the country’s campuses is critical
and without precedent. It calls for unprecedented action. The objective must be to ensure
access to higher education. In the short term:
We will be meeting the President and his Ministers in Pretoria tomorrow and will demand
decisive State intervention to ensure that students in need do not face a fee increase in
2016;
I have postponed the set of university examinations that was due to start on 27 October
2015. There will thus be no exams next week. We will set a new date for exams in
consultation with staff and students. (
Where a departmentally arranged exam was to have
been held at an earlier date arrangements will be made for those who did not arrive for such
exams to write the exam at a later date.)
The UCT Council will meet this weekend, after the meeting with the President and his
Ministers and I will put to it proposals aimed at ensuring that: students in need do not face
a fee increase in 2016; and that UCT’s comprehensive financial aid package for students in
need remains in place.
I have decided that the University will remain closed tomorrow, 23 October 2015, and we
will hold an open forum for members of the University in the morning.
I appeal to the State to act with restraint. I subscribe fully to the statement of the President
of Convocation, Professor Barney Pityana, who made the point this morning that there can
be no justification for the excessive use of force of the kind that was witnessed on television
on 21 October 2015. As he put it: this brought shame to every South African. (Professor
Pityana’s full statement is available on www.uct.ac.za.)
Max Price
Vice-Chancellor
22 October 2015