*Viewpoint | by Lazola Ndamase* *The poor must equally access tertiary education*
[image: Viewpoint by Lazola Ndamase]South Africa where hundreds of thousands of unemployed youth loiter in the streets while some sit in the backyards of their homes with no hope or prospects of progress in their lives. They live on the meager pensions of their grandparents who are not only burdened with supporting themselves but their children and grandchildren, all of whom sit at home unemployed and unemployable. To make matters worse, institutions of higher learning continue without any remorse to exclude students from the poor backgrounds. The higher education system year in and year out spews hundreds of thousands of students into the streets. We also have hundreds of thousands of young people who do not even bother attempting to register in institutions of higher learning out of the knowledge that there is no way in hell they could afford higher education fees. It is only the students who sprout from working class backgrounds that suffer this calamity, sending their dreams and those of their families flying off the window. Without education that could empower students from poor backgrounds to compete on a sound footing in the labour market their lives are doomed. Students from well to do backgrounds do not feel the pinch of education costs and they effortlessly acquire tertiary education that makes them be able to compete with ease and an added advantage in the labour market. As a result, poverty and opulence get recycled in an unbroken chain within poor family lineages regardless of the fluidity of capitalist society. In the past two weeks alone, hundreds of thousands of students have been spewed into street corners by institutions of higher learning with brazen impunity. These institutions claim lack of space. But, these are the same institutions that have spent millions revamping management offices and business centers, but have barely spared a cent to develop and expand academic facilities such as lecture halls, libraries and computer labs. Isn't learning and teaching at the core of institutions of higher learning mandate or the pendulum has swung? When the state attempts to intervene, institutions of higher learning hide and lodge behind the woodworks of institutional autonomy and academic freedom. Institutional autonomy and academic freedom has now become the finest instrument with which to keep the democratic government at bay whilst allowing unfettered room for ruthless economic calculation to hold sway in institutions at the expense of community service. Things cannot be allowed to continue this way. Right under the noses of our democratic government which has put education as one of its apex priority, the institutions of higher learning continue to slam shut the door to education on the faces of poor working class students. It is clear that the continued exclusion of working class students is nothing but a continuation of class apartheid. There is no other way to explain that working class students have been the most prominent casualties of the registration period. Working class families often look up to the education of their offspring as a way out of poverty and penury. To add salt to injury, the Minister of Higher Education, Dr Blade Nzimande, ineptly argues that the flocking of students into institutions of higher learning was "unexpected", both by the institutions and the Ministry. What was expected? That good Matriculants from poor backgrounds should have continued to stay at home than seek higher education? While the government continues to yelp about apex priorities, higher education's share of the total budget has decreased by a whopping 20% since 1996. So much for an apex priority, so much for radically pursuing skills development in order to grow the economy. It is more than an indictment that the post-1994 government does not have a single campus, let alone university that it can point to as a product of its own work. Rather than see the building of more campuses or universities, we have seen the merger of institutions shrink rather than expand the number of campuses. Almost every merged institution has at least one campus closed down. It is in this context that it was shocking to hear Dr. Blade Nzimande stand tall and say: the flocking of students in institutions of higher learning was unexpected. Just as the case of those who cannot access the system seems strong. Hundreds of thousands of graduates sit at home unemployed watching the sunrise and set. It is not because their qualifications are superfluous to the needs of the economy, but that capitalist economies need reserve labour in order to extract lower wages from those already in capitalist employ. Captains of industry keep increasing profit levels in order to feed their ever-expensive lifestyles. This can only be achieved through employing as less as possible while producing as much as possible. The dictum: "higher productivity at the lowest possible cost" taught in our curriculum and imbibed by economic students everyday is the locomotive that drives our economic direction. More than ever, progressive minds need to ensure that they work together to save our future by wrestling the direction of our education from the hands of the wolves of the capitalist market who will not only destroy the ever decreasing access to education but will damage South Africa's future. Our government must be willing to take institutions of higher learning head on, not the toothless critics we now have become. We need to do away with the notion that institutions of higher learning are enclaves of the rich and wealthy, otherwise we will fall flat on our noses in our quest to defeat apartheid and its economic edifice: capitalism. >> *Lazola Ndamase is Secretary General of the South African Students Congress - SASCO* -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] .
