By Lebone Rodah MosimaÂ
Deputy Minister of Higher Education and Training Yusuf Cassim has called for a practical student safety compact that sets clear responsibilities and measurable commitments across institutions, municipalities, law enforcement and accommodation providers.
Addressing the National Student Safety, Security and Well-Being Summit 2026 at the University of the Western Cape on Friday, Cassim said student safety was not simply a policy issue but a human obligation.
“When a parent sends a child to university, they are entrusting us with their son or daughter. That trust comes with a responsibility. Not simply to have policies,” Cassim said.
“Not simply to hold meetings. Not simply to receive reports. Our responsibility is to make sure they are safe. And when a system is not working, our responsibility is not to defend it. It is to change it.”
He said that no parent should be afraid to send their daughter or son to university because they fear that they may not return home safely.
He said just days ago, Cape Town once again walked in remembrance of Uyinene Mrwetyana.
He added that nearly seven years after the 19-year-old UCT student was raped and murdered in Claremont, the Uyinene Mrwetyana Foundation and UCT retraced the route she once travelled between Roscommon House, where she lived as a student, and the university where she was pursuing her education.
“Think about that for a moment. A young woman left her residence as a student pursuing an education and a future. The route between where she lived and the world she was trying to enter became a route of tragedy,” he said.
He said remembrance could not be the destination and questioned whether anything had changed since Uyinene’s death.
He said if Uyinene’s name has taught South Africans anything, it is that we cannot measure student safety only by what happens inside the university gate.
“The campus gate cannot become the boundary of our responsibility,” he said.
“A student does not stop being a student when they leave the campus gate.”
He added that students remain students when they walk to their residences, wait for taxis, walk to shops, cross municipal roads, enter private residences and return home at night.
Cassim said responsibility for student safety could not simply rest with universities and had to extend more broadly.
“The responsibility is much broader,” he said.
“Student safety is a shared responsibility, requiring universities, municipalities, law enforcement, accommodation providers, transport operators and students themselves to work together.”
According to the latest SAPS crime statistics for January to March 2026, he said 5,181 people were murdered nationally, an average of 58 lives lost every day.
He said the Western Cape recorded a murder ratio of 12.8 per 100,000 people, the second-highest provincial risk in the country.
“These may not be student-specific figures and we should not pretend that they are. But they tell us something important about the environment in which our students live, travel and study,” he said.
“These numbers tell us something uncomfortable: the environment in which our students live is not safe enough.”
He said that Cape Town is an example of what is possible when people, technology, intelligence and partnerships are brought together.
He said the City’s approach includes drones and other “eye-in-the-sky” capabilities, CCTV, automated licence-plate recognition, body-worn cameras, gunshot-detection technology, canine units and digitally enabled policing.
“But let me be clear: this summit is not about celebrating one city’s model. It is about asking what works,” he said.
“But where systems are failing students, we must be equally prepared to say so.”
“We cannot become more committed to protecting systems than protecting students.”
He said that the measure of success cannot be how many cameras are installed, how many policies are written, or how many meetings are held, but whether the student is safer.
“Technology alone, however, will never be enough. We need eyes in the sky, but also eyes on the ground,” he said.
“We need technology that identifies risk, people who can respond to that risk, and systems that ensure the response actually reaches the student.”
He said accommodation must be viewed not simply as a funding or housing issue, but as an essential component of the student’s educational experience and wellbeing.
“Where private landlords and accommodation agents participate in student housing, they must recognise that they are not simply providing a commercial service,” he said.
“They are providing the environment in which young people live and study, and they must uphold the applicable safety and accommodation standards.”
He said that student accommodation must be structurally sound, have appropriate access control, secure doors and windows, adequate lighting, meet fire-safety requirements and have safe electrical and gas installations.
He also said emergency procedures must exist, common areas must be maintained, students must know who to contact in an emergency, and safety concerns raised by students must be taken seriously and acted upon.
“These are not luxury standards or unreasonable expectations. They are part of what it means to provide a safe environment in which a student can live and learn,” he said.
In memory of Uyinene, he said it would be easy to commemorate her once a year, lay flowers, hold a walk, make speeches and then return to business as usual.
However, he said, the purpose of remembrance must ultimately be action.
“So today I want to propose that we begin moving towards a different national conception of student safety,” he said.
“Not a system in which every institution protects only its own piece. But a system in which the pieces connect.”
INSIDE EDUCATION
