Many universities have already started their 2022 academic year and for the University of Cape Town (UCT) this means a new outlook despite the pandemic continuing.

“[UCT] classes started on Monday, 14 February 2022. The intention in 2022 is to return to more face-to-face teaching whilst continuing to adhere to public health requirements. Overall, the majority research and teaching at UCT is now taking place. We are concluding the registration of some 26 000 students and all faculties and departments are hard at work to ensure the academic project is delivered,” the university writes.

In the primary and secondary education sectors we’ve seen the government do away with social distancing in schools. While some protections still remain to combat COVID-19 these changes leave students and parents worried about the dangers of attending class. As students in these sectors are not adults the Department of Basic Education (DBE) encourages students to get children ages 12 – 17 vaccinated.

For tertiary education, universities have their own policies and we’ve recently seen the University of Johannesburg (UJ) institute mandatory vaccinations and University of Pretoria the opposite, though it does “strongly encourage” vaccinations for students and staff.

As for UCT it seems that a policy for mandatory vaccinations is still in the works. Calls for comments on a draft closed recently on 31st January.

Student protests at UCT

Aside from putting in writing the intention for more face-to-face learning at UCT, the aforementioned announcement is mainly focused on student protests which have been happening recently.

“Since last week we have seen some intermittent protest actions led by the Student’s Representative Council (SRC) on our campuses… The SRC has since last week raised issues related to fee blocks that prevent students with debt over a certain amount from registering at UCT. They have since raised issues related to the registration process as well,” UCT writes.

UCT goes on to state that it has “worked extensively to engage the SRC” and it has “in essence… met all the SRC’s demands”.

Despite UCT’s statement the SRC has just uploaded the below video to social media providing an update on the situation.

The video makes mentions of many claims such as students being blocked from graduation, cancelled studies due to fee blocks, registration problems, NSFAS funding issues and more.

Update on what’s happening in UCT. pic.twitter.com/u5jDOGEpaT

— UCT SRC (@UCT_SRC) February 18, 2022