We, the undersigned and collective PGDA class of 2016, are calling for an immediate suspension and postponement of our current 3 (three) week consolidation period on the following basis:

1. Students are being disadvantaged by being denied access to resources on campus, encompassing:
   1. Access to catering facilities at university Residences
   2. Access to university transport services
   3. Access to campus study spaces and IT facilities
   4. Access to academic support via consultations and hotseats.
2. Students are not able to study at residence as study rooms have been shut down, with consistent and unpredictable protests-retated disruptions.
3. It is unfair (and possibly unconstitutional) that students are being explicitly and implicitly forced to make a choice between fighting for their rights and studying for exams during a time when there is a national shut down.
4. Following from the aforementioned point, many of the issues being championed by FeesMustFall (constantly being updated) directly affect the students in this class. The College's communications to date have implicitly forced students into isolating ourselves from their own movement. This is both insensitive and disrespectful to their plight.
5. In these uncertain times it is unambiguous that the these events ahve resulted in students not working as optimally as we would otherwise have been, particularly in the context of the College's assessment that we should be doing a minimum of 10 hours a day for 3 full weeks.
6. Following from the above, the current class results to date suggests that 70% of this class needs to put in more than the minimum to pass (based on the pass rate and the allocated study time).

Due to the issues raised above, and those raised by individual tutorial groups through their tutorial representatives, we believe unequivocally that ALL the time during which campus is shut down be disregarded from the scheduling of the predetermined 3 (three) week consolidation period.

Further, it is our unambiguous belief that there should be at least 3 (three) weeks of consolidation period during which all students have uninterrupted access to all university facilities and academic support, in contrast to the circumstances outlined in Point 1 (above).

Lastly, we would like to collectively condemn the public dismissal and discrediting of student movements that support eliminating issues that affect us directly as well as those around us, perpetrated by individuals within the College.

It is wholly inconsistent to aspire to produce young professionals with the highest standard of ethical and social consciousness by telling those same students to act in their self-interest and wilfully ignore issues of social justice and the improvement of society as a whole

Kind Regards

PGDA Students 2016