Police fire rubber bullets to disperse protesting students

PROTESTING students at Port Elizabeth College had to duck for cover yesterday as police fired rubber bullets into the crowd.

The outraged Qhayiya Campus students had locked the college’s administrator in the building after requesting a meeting with him and then allegedly being told that he had more important meetings to attend.

The students, who boycotted classes, were protesting because the administrator, Leon Beech, refused to listen to their grievances. They locked the gates, making sure he could not leave before responding to their grievances.

They barricaded the gate at the Struandale campus with a burning tyre and garden chairs.

"We have a problem with administrator Beech, who is allowing incompetency to be the order of the day,” Duma Rozana, a provincial executive member of the SA Students’ Congress (Sasco), said.