NEHAWU demands the immediate re-opening of the Western Cape College of Nursing {WCCN} and the re-instatement of all students who registered at the beginning of the year.
This follows the decision by the Department of Health (DOH) jointly with the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) to close the WCCN and evict all students on Thursday 28th January 2010.
The institution was shut down after students complained about the problematic operational and academic practices within the college and a court order was sought which barred six of the evicted students from entering the campus. It must be noted that the action of evicting all the students was an illegal one as the court order allowed for the eviction of only six students who are being targeted and victimised by the management.
This extraordinary decision left hundreds of students stranded on the streets with their belongings because some of them did not have accommodation and transport money to go home especially those who come from outside the province. We would also like to pay tribute to the ANCYL in the province and an ANC ward councilor who secured temporary accommodation for the students at a shelter for the weekend.
The union condemns this illegal eviction of students and the selective targeting and intimidation of the six students who are being silenced by the dictatorship that runs the institution.
There is an obvious vacuum of leadership at WCCN because this institution is moving from one crisis to another. This follows an announcement by the WCCN manager this morning that the CPUT registration unit is preparing to re-register students from this week without any proper notification to all the students that left the campus.
In addition CPUT wants to put in place a process that will screen the students registering so as to easily purge all those considered trouble makers by the management. This apartheid style tactic of profiling and banning students from learning institutions is totally unacceptable especially when it happens at a time when South Africa and the world celebrate 20 years since the immoral system of apartheid was done away with.
The continued failure of the management of WCCN, CPUT & DOH to create a favourable teaching and learning environment for nursing students in the Western Cape is criminal. The issues that are the source of this dispute are very basic for any learning institution and should have been long resolved by the management.
The union therefore demands an immediate stop of the re-registration programme as it is both illegal and a waste of resources. We also demand an urgent meeting with the management and all stakeholders to deal with the list of student grievances and the management’s approach to resolving this impasse. |
