The United Front (UF) on Monday called for what it titled “a National Conference of Students to consolidate and unify the struggles of our universities and other tertiary institutions”.

“The struggles that have broken out at the universities of Cape Town‚ Stellenbosch‚ Rhodes‚ KwaZulu-Natal‚ Witwatersrand‚ North West‚ Tshwane University of Technology and the Western Cape have brought to the fore the racist‚ sexist and capitalist foundations of our post-apartheid society‚” a UF statement said.

This‚ the party said‚ translates into “financial exclusions”‚ high registration‚ tuition and residence fees‚ “continued valorisation and celebration of a brutal racist history‚ a curriculum and pedagogy out of touch with the needs‚ history and aspirations of Africans and other practices that marginalise and punish poor black students”.

“Our institutions of higher learning reproduce the inequalities the United Front was formed to fight and defeat‚” the UF said.

One example cited by the party occurred “at the university currently known as Rhodes”‚ where “armed police were called in to intimidate students protesting against the lack of transformation and complete disregard for poor students who need accommodation during the vacation”.

Another concerned the University of the Witwatersrand and the “farcical” recent exclusion of members of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) from Student Representative Council (SRC) elections for their alleged part in violent protests.

The EFF is “a party that unsettles the establishment with its rhetoric and tactics”‚ the UF statement said.

“(Wits) has become a place where criticism‚ protest and disruption are suppressed.”

The UF also took aim and the African National Congress-backed South African Students Congress‚ which “has resorted to bullying and intimidation in a feeble attempt to maintain ANC- aligned domination”.

“Students are awake to the failures of the government and university administrations to create universities and ‘The South Africa We Want’‚” the UF said.

“These are the failures of post-apartheid South Africa. These are the failure of universities under a global neoliberal hegemony that have forced students in Chile‚ Canada and now South Africa to fight back.”