Greetings to the Deputy President, NEC, Members and Supporters at large!
2021: Looking into the future – redefining the Post-Schooling and Training and the new student; 30 years of unbroken service.
The 21st NEC of SASCO has emerged from a period that requires a great organisational
introspection to enable us to adequately address and critically understand the role of the organisation in contending with the growing and diversifying challenges we are facing in the sector, largely in our society. The need for the organisation to renew and re-organise its structures to accommodate the new student (the techno -savvy student) is of paramount importance if we are to not cede completely the space to those that do not have a richer history or a more insightful understanding of the necessity for transformation in the sector.
Every year when we usher in a new year, our activists come back with renewed commitment and vigour for the Right To Learn of all humanity. During this time of the year realities of Apartheid, capitalism become naked for all to see. The exclusion of black African youth from working-class backgrounds becomes common in our institutions of Higher Learning. The post-schooling education and training institutions in our country increase fees, the admission requirements are still not standardized and are forever on the rise, and the financial and academic exclusions are expected to skyrocket after the first-ever mass roll-out of e-learning. These are realities confronting the South African working-class youth that seeks to access higher education and training. This year we make a clarion call to; Look into the future – Redefine the Post-Schooling Education and Training and the new student; 30 years of unbroken service.
While we have resolved to look into the future of PSET, we must be cognisant that Higher education institutions in South Africa were profoundly shaped by apartheid planning and by the respective functions assigned to them in relation to the reproduction of the apartheid social order. It was the fundamental differences in allocated roles that distinguished the white institutions and historically black institutions and constituted the key differentiation and the principal basis of inequalities between them. The patterns of advantage and disadvantage, however, are not simply historical; they continue to condition the current capacities of institutions to pursue excellence, to provide high-quality learning and research experiences, equity of opportunity, and to contribute to economic and social development.
The previous academic year 2020 has seen it all and exposed these inequalities as though to some they were a new phenomenon in higher education. The novel coronavirus and lockdown as declared by our government, exposed these inequalities for everyone to see. The hasty implementation of e-learning has left a lot of students behind and unfortunately, the majority of these students are from working-class backgrounds. The hurried introduction of the “virtual student” without enabling the foundational tools and conditions we have been calling for as an organisation has perpetuated the stratification and exclusionary nature of institutions in our country. The call we have always made for “one student – one gadget” must be realised before we can commence with the 2021 academic year. This is a critical step in ensuring we close part of the access and throughput gap in our institutions.
The “new student” as we had begun to characterise as early as our SASCO 16 th National Congress is now the student we have the task of leading. This student is in need of adequate ICT support infrastructure and a strong technological competence to enable them to excel in virtual teaching and learning. This will necessitate a more in-depth collaboration between the Basic and Higher Education Departments, the discussion we believe should venture on the necessity to keep the basic and Higher education Department separate.
We believe there is a need to intensify the discussion on the re-intergration of the higher and basic education Departments. The student movement has the responsibility of modernising itself because of these new realities within the sector. In the previous academic year, SASCO had to organize and execute its tasks and mandate through virtual means for the remainder of the year 2020 and the coronavirus global pandemic has not subsided meaning the lockdowns must continue being imposed to minimize the spread of the virus and save lives. This year institutions of higher learning have migrated to digital applications and registrations. Our annual campaign must also follow suit. The work of our activists in all our institutions of higher learning is to find creative means of enabling access and success in our institutions in light of the different circumstances we find ourselves. We must fight tirelessly that the advent of more technological applications, appeals, funding, registration, and learning systems does not lead to a mass exodus of poor and working-class students in our institutions. In everything making manifest our humble endeavor that all should enjoy the Right To Learn.
We call on our activists on the ground to understand that this campaign constitutes the very basis of the existence of SASCO. It is therefore important that our cadres and activists take the work of this campaign seriously and serve our people diligently. Last year during our national day of action wherein we had mass actions we submitted a memorandum to the government that called for the urgent revamping of TVET Colleges and demanded a timeline of the nine (9) new TVET Colleges President Cyril Ramaphosa pronounced that government would build during the State of the Nation Address (SONA). We received an update from the government that ICT Infrastructure is being rolled out across TVET Colleges and some of our key demands are being attended to. This year we must heighten our call for the development and transformation of this sector. The delay of the rollout of laptops to students across the country has been a major challenge to the speedy migration and participation of students in online learning platforms. The COVID19 pandemic has put to sharp focus the evident Monitoring and Evaluation capacity inefficiencies in our government, with looting and corruption running rampant over the past few months. We call for a comprehensive evaluation of the state procurement processes and capacity, this should not be limited to DHET alone but to all government departments. The call for greater Monitoring and Evaluation will also be foregrounded by our belief that there needs to be a complete overhaul of the tender system. We believe that the may be a need to begin the complete scrapping if the tender system in favour of building state capacity.
Later this year we will be celebrating 30 years of the existence of this gigantic student movement. We will be striving to transform the post-schooling and education sector to respond to the immediate needs of the society and whether since 1994, we have succeeded to change the application of the principle of segregation in higher education? ;
• Whether non-white (black) universities and colleges have ceased being ethnic and racial spaces? ;
• Whether barriers to education and certain fields of study have been sufficiently removed at different levels of the education system? ;
• Whether the positioning of some of our higher learning and post-secondary institutions does not perpetuate the “self -supporting” role of producing a mass labor reservoir, euphemistically called unemployment and un-employability?;
• Whether it is not time to earnestly question capitalism’s false debate about the shortage of skills and the failure of the education system to match its needs for skilled labor?;
• Whether it is not time to counter the hegemonic economic determinism of capitalism, that education leads to skills, skills lead to employment, employment leads to economic growth?; and
• Whether it is not time to question the hegemonic view that diminishes the essential value of humanity and reduces human beings to nothing more than a commodity freely available at the hands of the employers?
Building State Institutional Capacity
In his well-known book, “The Great Transformation”, Karl Polanyi stresses a particular defect in the self-regulating economy that only recently has been brought back into discussion. It involves the relationship between the economy and society, with how economic systems or reforms can affect how individuals relate to one another. Again,as the importance of social relations has increasingly become recognised, the vocabulary has changed. We now talk, for instance, about social capital. The central point made by Polanyi is that the capitalist market destroys relations of kinship, neighbourhood, profession, and creed, replacing these with the pursuit of personal wealth by citizens who as he says, have become atomistic and individualistic.
The application of any market fundamentals must not be at the expense of other critical societal aspects that sharpen the ability for the state to discharge its responsibility to the people.
The current pandemic has sharpened our critical focus on corrosive nature of some among our ranks, those who prey on the vulnerability of any situation to advances self-serving and selfish aims. The corruption that has come to charaterise the emergency procurement processes in many of our state departments can be said to be treasonous.
Those who have lined their pockets at the expense of the health and safety of our people should be squeezed and push rot in the darkest prisons in our country, what they have done is tantamount to murder. We as the South African Students Congress believe there is a necessary discussion to be had around strengthening the State monitoring and evaluation capacity and also look on developing the States Capacity to scrap the tender system. When the State develops this capacity it will be able to have a stronger hold on certain loosely regulated markets and can further create more equitable and favourable economic spinoffs for our people.
The application of any market fundamentals must not be at the expense of other critical societal aspects that sharpen the ability for the state to discharge its responsibility to the people.
We call on government to do an extensive review and consolidation on all State Owned Entities and refocus its efforts on the building state power towards a more equitable society. Government should look deeply at the establishment of the
following:
1. State Bank
2. State Construction Company
3. State Pharmaceutical Company
4. State Publishing Company
5. State Bakery/ Grainery
6. State Telecommunications Company
Health before Wealth
The COVID 19 pandemic has forced all of us to
become more self-aware in a bid to save not only our own lives but those around us. With this has new found self-awareness we have come to appreciate more sharply our interconnectedness as a people. This made vividly clear with the rate of transmissions of the virus. This new self awareness, under normal circumstances, is meant to breed a more humane, more considerate and progressively conscious populous.
This new normal has also exposed the very
eschewed principles of the capitalist market, which has in this crisis seen opportunity, the prices of essentials and immune boosting medication has skyrocketed, and this has made these goods more inaccessible for our poor in communities.
We as the progressive student movement should do more in order to ensure that the basic amenities during this pandemic are accessible to our most poor and vulnerable while exposing the regressive values endemic of a capitalist mode of production that puts wealth before health. Our organization should be emphatic in its message of “health before wealth”.
We as the South African Students Congress will be raising masks to distribute to the poor in order to make this life saving item at these times more accessible. We will be launching our Health before Wealth campaign by distributing these masks at taxi ranks, to street hawkers, beggars and the homeless around the country. The Health Before Wealth campaign will be led by the Deputy President, Buyile Matiwane. The campaign will cover research on the prices of essential medical supplies and the accessibility of medical essentials to the most marginalized in our country. The campaign will also look at ensuring that corporates are held accountable for any actions that may further disenfranchise our poor and vulnerable.
Gender Based Violence
South Africa is a deeply violent society and it continues to wrestle with the impact of decades of institutionalised racism, sexism, exclusion, structural violence and other factors that have continues to undermine human development and positive social cohesion as an organisation we recognise the crisis of GBVF and its profound impact in the lives and wellbeing’s of the survivors, children, families, communities and society as a whole. There is increasing recognition that this context demands a whole society approach in understanding, responding, prevention and ultimately elimination GBVF.
We recognise and want to further emphasise the role and duty of the justice systems, the
government and the South African police in fulfilling its obligated constitutional role in this country, which is to provide safety and security for the vulnerable while protecting them from any harm as well. GBV and enabled by prevalence of gender inequality and is rooted in patriarchal norms. It is defined as any act of violence against women or children or any vulnerable member of the society which includes threats of such acts of coercion or arbitrary deprivation of Liberty, whether occurring in public or private. GBV affects society at large and needs all of us to stand up and wage a war on this large pandemic that is facing South Africa
With many forms of GBV that are prominent in this country it is quite evident that this is an issue that needs all members of the society to stand up and fight the surge of GBV, fight rape, fight harassment as well, with many Forms of GBV being prominent and visisble daily, structural GBV is also very prominent and is an outcome of the unequal and exclusionary South African economy, this form of structural violence has remained hidden and is often overlooked and is underpinned by exploitation in nature. This includes polices that are exclusive and don’t seek to accommodate South Africa and those who live in it. As the South African students congress we want to ensure that we are the voice of those who are voiceless and ensure that our language speaks to issues that affect us young people and the process of our country, we also want to ensure that we work with other organisations to ensure that our voices are heard and that our polices speak to the realities of our country and be able to shape this society to what we seek to see for the future and the current
Towards a more progressive social consciousness With students being based predominantly at home due to online learning, this presents an opportunity for students of our country to be proactive change agents in their communities in order to address the social issues still manifest in our communities. We call on all students to start playing a more progressive role in their communities and take a keen interest in what is happening in their communities. We are firm in our belief that the skills acquired in institutions must at all times be a progressive tool for the advancement of our communities.
Non Racialism
South Africa is founded on a Bill of Rights that elevates human dignity and life above any other right. The pandemic has provided an opportunity to have an in-depth and broader understanding on the nature of the health system as the country implements the National Health System for universal health care of its people, to close the inequality gap, to build a non-sexist and non-racial country funded on equality.
The pandemic has exposed fissures of racism and all forms of attacks from the noble interventions of the democratic State to rescue the country from the economic doldrums. Black economic empowerment and economic development policies is an option but an instrument designed to level the comic playing fields and equal participation of small businesses and the entrance of new ventures into the stream economy as opposed to consumerism.
SASCO condemns all forms of racism.
In the spirit of international solidarity we join the world in the Struggle for justice and human rights. Ending racism is not debatable. It must end now.
Youth driven Youth based Innovation for the future
The fourth quarterly labour survey of 2020 revealed that we are record unemployment and the most victims of this are young people. To rescue the situation we must emphasis even more emphatically on the need for innovation and access to development funding for youth based innovative initiatives, the youth of this country has enough tenacity and vision to resolve what may to be insurmountable challenges faced by the state
currently. We call on government to sharpen their lenses of youth driven innovation and initiatives.
Youth development must come a common feature in governments turnaround trajectory. At a higher education level, we call on all SRC’s that are sitting for any appointments or adjudications, to be firm on prioritising young people and youth owned enterprises.
Conclusion
The need to reignite the flame of youth activism is no more exigent than now. Our intense resolve to scalp a future that represents the aspiration of all, is now. We must unrelentingly claim our place in
the future of this country. The task is not for some of us, the enlightened, it is for all of us. We must press on to expose the pariah manifestation endemic in unchecked capitalism. We must refuse to be fodder for nefarious individually atomistic interest (homoeconomicus) that seek nothing more than to line their pockets at the expense of the
collective progression of our people. We must unapologetically root out any and all corrupt self-serving tendencies from wherever they may manifest.
“Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Dylan Thomas : 1914-19