Earlier this week, the Universities South Africa (USAf) released a rather disturbing statement in which it claims that damage sustained by the tertiary education sector last year due to student protests is estimated to have now exceeded the R600 million mark.

USAf said: “There is growing anxiety that the academic project of 2016 is in serious jeopardy. While we are committed to the idea that students have every right to engage in protests and activism in their quest for fee-free higher education, we are also increasingly despairing of the nature of these protests.

In April this year, the Department of Higher Education and Training in April issued a figure of R300 million, with the damages broken down as follows according to Business Tech:

Rhodes University

Cost of damages: R250 000

University of Johannesburg

Cost of damages: R345 000

Walter Sisulu University

Cost of damages: R351 287

Universities of Stellenbosch

Cost of damages: R352 000

Cape Peninsula University of Technology

Cost of damages: R689 850

Wits University

Cost of damages: R1 410 223

Limpopo

Cost of damages: R1 786 294

Free State University

Cost of damages: R2 800 000

University of Cape Town

Cost of damages: R3 200 000

University of Zululand

Cost of damages: R4 500 000

Tshwane University of Technology

Cost of damages: R5 073 747

Universities of KwaZulu Natal

Cost of damages: R82 000 000

University of the Western Cape

Cost of damages: R46 544 446

North West

Cost of damages: R151 000 000

These figures do not account for the UJ Auditorium in May which is estimated to have done a further R100 million in damages or the William O’Brien residence at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s (UKZN) Pietermaritzburg campus was set alight earlier on Monday or the library burnt at UKZN.

The Witness also reported on Tuesday that students had tampered with the air-conditioners in the Law block at UKZN on Sunday night.

The Witness said:

Reports were that the fans had been rigged with a gas concoction that would release into the lecture venues when the air-conditioners were turned on. One student took to Facebook to confess. “The air-conditioners at Law School, C12, NAB [New Arts Building], A1 and R.Mac [Ronald MacMillan] have been tampered with some sort of pepper spray chemical please advise your lecturer not to open them please [sic],” the student wrote, apologising and saying that guilt had gotten the better of him.

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