‘Too early for CPUT nursing students to take up residence’
|Published
Third and fourth-year nursing students from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology say the university has denied them a chance to go back to campus. Picture: David Ritchie/African News Agency(ANA) Third and fourth-year nursing students from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology say the university has denied them a chance to go back to campus. Picture: David Ritchie/African News Agency(ANA)
Cape Town - Third and fourth-year nursing students from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) say the university has denied them a chance to go back to campus.
The students said it was clearly stated by Higher Education, Science and Innovation Minister Blade Nzimande that they form part of the 33% of students that should go back to residence “as we require clinical practice for our year of study”.
A fourth-year student, Ncebakazi Dwesini, said the matter had been taken up by their student representative council (SRC), but “no good results came out of the meeting” held with the university management.
“Instead, a residence which is a building under the government is allowing students to retrieve their belongings, which can be an indication of no intention to return students under training,” Dwesini said.
She said pupils were back at school under precautions, whereas an institution of higher learning was refusing to allow students back.
“Fourth- and third-years are given theory to rush through with no plans of interactively learning to go through it,” Dwesini said.
“They are left to work on their own and figure out how to apply the theory at work."
Athlone campus SRC chairperson Thobile Tshefu said they recently met the university management and were given a date of return for the fourth-year students, “which is August 1, and all other students will return at a later stage”.
CPUT spokesperson Lauren Kansley said: “It is still premature for nursing students to return to clinical practice and residence.
“Once arrangements are concluded we will commence with the return of our nursing students to the clinical platform, and part of this will include re-entry to residence.”
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