Student protests at the University of Cape Town (UCT) have resulted in the postponement of the academic institution’s annual mathematics competition.
The 2023 UCT Mathematics Competition was scheduled for today (25 April). However, on Wednesday 19 April, the parents of learners participating in the competition received an email from the university’s department of mathematics and applied mathematics, saying that the competition had to be postponed due to safety concerns.
“We can’t guarantee the safety of the roughly 8 000 students that have registered for the competition. Even if the protests aren’t violent, the competition could be easily disrupted by protestors blockading the entrances. I am worried that we present a soft target that they might pursue because of the large impact it would have,” the email read.
Rescheduled
First established in 1977, the annual contest invites more than 400 high schools in the province to participate. Each school can enter five individuals and five pairs per grade. Entry is free. Among others, the contest aims to identify promising students and offer them opportunities for further development of their mathematical talents. The competition has provisionally been rescheduled to Tuesday 25 July.
The competition organiser said that the decision to postpone the maths competition was a difficult one to make.
“It was a decision made by the organising committee in consultation with UCT’s Head of Security and Risk Management team. We don’t want to postpone the competition. We realise that protests might stop before Tuesday and that we could go ahead but it’s not a risk we want to take.”
Protest action broke out on campus on Monday 17 April. About three lectures were disrupted in the Kramer Law Building in the afternoon and later in the evening groups of protestors, fluctuating between 20 and 50 individuals, blocked Baxter Road and started small fires on lower and upper campuses. The protest action resurfaced on Upper Campus late on Tuesday afternoon (18 April).
People’s Post also got caught in the protest action on the day after attending a launch event held in the Otto Beit building located on Upper Campus.
Leaving the event at around 19:30, People’s Post was blocked from using the Upper Campus exit and forced to turn around.
The group of about 20 protesting students placed concrete blocks under the vehicle, shouted a running stream of abuse and on three occasions tried to grab the keys from the vehicle’s ignition.
Elijah Moholola, UCT spokesperson, said management hoped to resolve the situation speedily “and to work collaboratively with the SRC in the best interest of the UCT community”.
