Tertiary institutions came under the spotlight again on Monday, following chaos at Unisa when prospective students attempted to climb over the gates and break locks to gain access to the premises for registration.
The situation calmed down later.
Last week, Limpopo's Capricorn TVET College was hit by a stampede that resulted to two prospective students being hospitalised and several more injured.
Registration resumed incident-free, once it was moved to the Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane on Monday.
College PRO Tumelo Morobe said that the situation was much calmer and more monitored than that which resulted in the stampede.
"So far we have registered about 3,500 new applications, and still have about 2,000 others still queuing outside," he said.
Morobe added that in order to ensure that proceedings continued peacefully, the college had provided tents and toilets for prospective students who had been camping outside the venue since Saturday.
"The proceedings are monitored by SAPS, and we also have emergency services on standby, so our application is incident-free today," he said.
News24 reported that spokesperson for the university Martin Ramotshela said that although they announced that late applications would be allowed, they did not anticipate having so many students responding to the call.
Meanwhile, DA MP Belinda Bozzoli claimed on Monday that the chairperson of Parliament's portfolio committee on higher education and training, Cornelia September, refused her request that a committee be convened to brief MPs on where funds for tertiary education would be generated from.
According to Bozzoli, the chairperson said that members of the ANC who would be required to form such a committee were "not available" for the committee.
"The ANC is clearly not serious about addressing the funding crisis caused by President Jacob Zuma. Zuma's announcement that tertiary education would be made free for some students was seemingly only a political ploy, given the lack of any clear plans," Bozzolli said in a statement.
"Universities and colleges urgently need funding to pay their expenses, and cannot simply wait for the budget speech in February. The ANC government is still unable to tell us how much the plan will cost, and which departments will see their budgets cut in order to fulfil Zuma's wishes."