They were complaining about not getting certificates at the controversial artisan school.
Seven students were sacked at the Mshiniwami Academy in Secunda this week, the EFF has said.
Gert Sibande EFF secretary Tlou Manamela gave the 013NEWS reporter the names of the seven students that the artisan training institution fired this week.
He said since 2015 the students at the school had been having problems of not being employable and the seven who got fired were complaining about being given only statements of results and not certificates after finishing their courses.
Called Mshiniwami Artisan Training Academy, the academy was started in 2015 and involves a government-private company partnership.
“The students are complaining about the issue of not receiving their certificates since 2015,” Manamela said.
“They are issued with statements of results, some students left academy without their certificates.
“It is not fair as some are forced to pay bribes of R3000 to the principal for them to be admitted,” he said when he spoke to the 013NEWS reporter.
The students on Wednesday refused to go to classes and began protesting against the “humiliation” of the seven
“We tried on Wednesday afternoon to engage with management but they keep on avoiding us,” Manamela said, adding over 2000 students are affected.
“Yes we did have a look at this statement of results but we are still investigating on how valid is this statements and I don’t think that the management is ready to issue out the certificates. EFF will investigate this matter and will come with better solution after we have done investigations,” he said.
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One of the fired students, Zama Khulu, spoke to 013NEWS over the phone and said that she went there “in order to build a future for myself”.
” When we ask for certificate after completing each and every level we are told that certificates is something we won’t get,” she said.
Manamela said the school was supposed to produce artisans “but dololo”.
“The government pays lots of money to Mshiniwam so that they produce more artisans but dololo,” he said.
Attempts to get comments from the school principal drew blank.
(edited by ZK)
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