Graduation is the celebration of the culmination of years of hard work, dedication and hours spent by students on growing their knowledge around a chosen area of expertise.
However, some students from the University of South Africa (Unisa) will have to wait a little bit longer to graduate after several graduation ceremonies were postponed by the university.
Graduation ceremonies scheduled for the afternoon of 15 March 2022 at 18:00 as well as 16 March 2022 at 10:00 and 18:00 respectively have been postponed until further notice.
The disruption to the graduation ceremonies was caused by protesting members of the National Education, Health, and Allied Workers' Union (NEHAWU) on Tuesday.
It is reported that the protest was sparked after the university pulled out of a salary adjustment agreement with workers.
Unisa said, “The University will endeavour to make arrangements for the graduates who have been inconvenienced by the disruptions and will, in due course, communicate the details of such arrangements directly to the affected graduates.
NEHAWU's Lunathi Hontoti said, “from our own understanding knowing the management that we are dealing with in the university, we are not so confident but we continue to push because we have also called also for the intervention of council on this issue just to ensure that we resolve the impasse and members receive what belongs to them”.
He added that the affected staff will not be granting any services to students until a resolution is found.
“We believe that we should be able to find a solution to the problem and what we have agreed upon as the union is that we are not going to service any student. The university services are going to be shut down until such time that the issue has been resolved,” concluded Hontoti.
Unisa has also sent their apologies to the students for having been inconvenienced by the events of the past few days.
