From the Chair of Council
Engagement with the IRTC report
03 May 2019 | From the Chair’s Desk
Dear members of the campus community
The purpose of the Institutional Reconciliation and Transformation Commission (IRTC) Steering Committee meeting held on 22 March 2019 was to make general comments on the IRTC report as well as specifically to review the recommendations put forward in the report.
During the meeting, participants agreed that more time was required to consider the recommendations that were included in the “Recommendations” section as well as in the body of the report. Given that the report was handed to the steering committee on 18 March 2019, only four days before the steering committee meeting, there was general agreement to delay confirming any recommendations to Council so that constituency representatives would have ample time to receive feedback on the report, as well as recommendations from their constituencies, and to formulate their position on the basis of this feedback and their own more detailed engagement with the report.
The next IRTC Steering Committee meeting will be held on 3 June 2019. At this meeting the committee will discuss feedback from the various constituencies and, based on this, make recommendations to Council. Representatives on the steering committee have undertaken to engage with their respective constituencies before this date to solicit input.
The next UCT Council meeting will be held on 22 June 2019. We urge members of the university to provide input on the report and provide recommendations to their respective representatives by 20 May 2019.
Sincerely
Sipho M Pityana
Chair of UCT Council
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Institutional Reconciliation and Transformation Commission (IRTC)
The Institutional Reconciliation and Transformation Commission (IRTC) Steering Committee was established as a result of a period of unprecedented tension at the University of Cape Town (UCT) at the end of 2016. The creation of the multi-stakeholder steering committee that will oversee the proposed IRTC was one of the resolutions made in the 6 November 2016 agreement, which effectively brought the waves of continuing protest at the university to a halt.
The agreement, which was signed between the UCT executive and protesting student groups, paved the way for the establishment of the IRTC, whose aims are to
- consider all Shackville-related protests of 2016, including disciplinary procedures and interdicts
- invite submissions from all constituencies on clemencies that were granted and decide whether clemency should be turned into amnesty
- make recommendations on how the university should deal with pending cases and other such matters in the future
- make recommendations on institutional culture, transformation, decolonisation, discrimination, identity, disability and any other matters that the university community has raised over the past 18 months, or may wish to raise in the future.
The IRTC’s objective is to map an inclusive and fair course for the university as it tackles the legacy of the so-called Shackville protests and to focus on the issues that have caused division on our university campus.
Read IRTC documents:
- Read the 6 November agreement
- Read the declaration by students seeking clemency
- Read the FAQ about the agreement
- Read the criteria and process for nominating commissioners - List of Steering Committee Members
- Names of the IRTC Steering Committee members
- Email addresses of the IRTC Steering Committee members
- See the announcement of the IRTC Commissioners
- IRTC Final Report
A summary and analysis of the Terms of Reference are given in Chapter 2, starting on page 7
Feedback and responses to the IRTC report:
IRTC Final Report
Statements by the IRTC
Latest news
Reports from the Steering Committee Chair
2018 IRTC Steering Committee meetings
2017 IRTC Steering Committee meetings