We the delegates to the 8th National General Council (NGC) of the South African Students Congress (SASCO), gathered at Coastal College Umlazi V Campus in Durban: representing 305 branches and all structures of the organisation, hereby adopt this declaration as our collective message to the South African student populace and society in general.
Our choice of this venue is not accidental but confirms our unwavering stance on the importance of this sector as a critical key driver and vehicle for job creation, scarce skills and everlasting solutions to youth unemployment.
We were strengthened by messages of support from our allies, namely the Congress of the South African Students (COSAS), Young Communist League of South Africa (YCLSA) and the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL); We received encouraging inputs from the Education Alliance; South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) and the National Education Health and Allied Workers (NEHAWU): We were furthered strengthened by inputs from the African National Congress (ANC). The Director-General of the Department of Higher Education & Training delivered an update on the state of higher education. We received an informative presentation from the NSFAS board.
We convened under the theme “Looking into the future – redefining the Post Schooling and Training Sector and the New Student; Celebrating 30 years of unbroken Service’, this theme signals our milestone as the organization and the status quo of our education system which remains a commodity and an ivory tower for the elite and the privileged. Our people are still suffering from the bondage of apartheid colonialism, the triple crisis of unemployment, inequality, and poverty. Our education system thus cannot liberate the masses of our people if it remains unchanged.
We were reinvigorated by the educative and commanding political update from our President. We commit ourselves to sparing no efforts in the struggle for free quality education which will totally liberate the toiling masses of our people who continue to suffer from the legacy of apartheid colonialism because of the exclusionary nature of our education system. We also commit ourselves to leaving no stone unturned in ensuring that we restlessly wage war for total transformation of the Higher Education sector, People’s Education in People’s Institution.
We reaffirmed the centrality of political education as a backbone of our organization upon which conscious cadres will be developed, this is a response to the growing tendency of the decay and rot which has infiltrated our structures, demagogic characters that want to hijack our organization and student struggles for narrow and populist political point-scoring. Our national political academy will be the basic course which will be mandatorily implemented by all our structures.
To renew our organization, we will employ innovative ways of struggle; this requires of us to develop the new student activist, rebrand our image whilst maintaining our defining traditions and values. SASCO will develop a catchy and politically realistic student charter which will serve as a guide to our recruitment. Whereas we will continue recruiting students from all walks of life the idea is however to convert those into quality members guided by Marxism and Leninism as tools of analysis and political guide to action.
WE THUS DECLARE THE FOLLOWING:
- Our commitment to the principle of international solidarity and building a class-conscious internationalist cadre, with an African focus.
- To balance our contradictory and complimentary approach to both government and the ANC.
- To strengthening our programmatic relations with the PYA components with a special focus to COSAS, to nurture the transition.
- To introduce compulsory monthly political education programs for all our structures.
- To conducting campaigns which respond to the needs of students and challenges confronting the new generation of students.
- To redesigning SASCO as the popular and most reckoned choice of all students.
- We reaffirm pillars of SASCO as a guide to action, and compulsory for all structures of SASCO.
- To wage a relentless war for better student accommodation across board
- To reaffirm our principle of non-Sexism for an attainment of an equal society.
- To reclaim our rightful space as a revolutionary intelligentsia.
- To establish a legal resource to mitigate student victimisation.
- As an organisation, SASCO views institutions of Higher Learning as centres of Knowledge and Excellence, in this context declare war on GBV-Femicide and the persecution of LGBTQI+ Community. Any assault on this vulnerable component of society is an attack on SASCO.
We are going back to our respective branches and homes politically richer than we were, more determined to the course and rejuvenated based on our firm belief that branches are the nucleus and pillars of this organisation.
Issued by SASCO
Bamanye Matiwane
President
079 026 5759
Buthanani Thobela
Secretary-General
073 257 5677
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