Hollow Freedom Day celebrations for MUT students

Tuesday 27 April 2010 marks Freedom Day in South Africa and the 16^th anniversary of the first Democratic Election for all South Africans. It is a day where South Africans should consider the sacrifices that were made to achieve freedom in South Africa and to value freedom accordingly.

The celebration of freedom for students at Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT), is made hollow by the circumstances under which they live. The Democratic Alliance has been approached by a group of students who have indicated that approximately 60% of students at the institution currently suffer from hunger and are unable to sustain themselves.

The lack of government subsidising of meals and nourishment at university level has been pointed out as the major cause of this problem. Many of the affected students are beneficiaries of student loans, which cannot subsidise meals, and are from impoverished homes. As a result many students are resorting to prostitution as a means to afford meals. “Prostitution has become a last resort for students so that they can buy themselves food,” said Ntuthuko Shezi, an MUT student campaigning against hunger.

Students have raised their outrage about the fact that the ANC government not only supplies meals to primary and secondary education facilities, but also provides three meals a day to prisoners in the country. This frustration is furthered by the fact that the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has had to return R40 million to the government last year as universities could not find enough students to meet the threshold, even while thousands of struggling students who fell marginally above the threshold were left to struggle financially.

A concerned group of MUT students have as a result established an initiative called the “Anti-Hunger Project”, an independent student organization aimed at tackling the issue of student hunger – starting with MUT.  “Our aim is to uplift the standard of learning and to lift the pass rate. We have discovered that the students cannot concentrate while they are hungry,” said Shezi.

Despite the presence of SASCO in the SRC structures, appeals for this issue to be addressed have not been met with any action. “Students at MUT are calling upon the government to support us in providing adequate nutrition,” said Shezi.
 

“The current situation is untenable. On the one hand you have a government scratching its head as to why an estimated 60% of students do not complete their degrees and on the other hand we have students who are unable to concentrate in lectures because of chronic hunger,” said DA KZN Provincial Leader John Steenhuisen MPL.
 

The Democratic Alliance will be raising this issue in the KZN Legislature, demanding answers. We commend the work of these student activists, is made particularly relevant by our celebration of Freedom Day and the individuals who stood up against the sufferings of their fellow South Africans.

“Our freedom in South Africa was hard won, many South Africans laid down their lives for the freedom we now enjoy. Every time a Malema or a Visagie makes racially charged statements it cheapens the sacrifice many made for freedom. We must reject the racially charged fringes of our politics and focus on building a truly non racial open opportunity society,” said Steenhuisen.