Daily news archives
Students sift through admissions policy
26 March 2012
On the forum: Prof Crain Soudien and other panellists debated UCT's admissions policy at a BMF discussion.
To say that UCT's admissions policy has prompted some debate over recent weeks would be an understatement.
There was more polemic on 20 March when the Democratic Alliance Youth launched a poster on the topic - the latest in its In Our Future series - in the afternoon, and the UCT student chapter of the Black Management Forum (BMF) hosted a panel discussion in the evening.
At the BMF event, panellists - vice-chancellor Dr Max Price; deputy vice-chancellor Professor Crain Soudien; executive director of the Transformation Office, Glenda Wildschut; and Students' Representative Council transformation officer, Kwadwo Owusu - responded to two key objections to the university's use of race in its admissions policy.
These were, firstly, that using race as a proxy for disadvantage - as the policy does - stereotypes black students as academically inferior to their white counterparts; and, secondly, whether such policies can be defended as fair.
