*YCL Press Statement* January 05, 2012
*YCL Statement on 2011 matric results* The Young Communist League of South Africa [uFasimba] welcomes the 2011 matric results as announced last night by the Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga. We appreciate the slight improvement from 67.8% in 2010 to 70.2% in 2011. We would like to congratulate the candidates that have done well. While we celebrate these results it is worth noting that schools that are former “Model C” are doing well as compared to their counterparts from previously disadvantaged communities. These schools excel due to better infrastructure and well equipped laboratories; the gaps between the two must be bridged as soon as possible to contribute in the efforts to build an equal learning environment for all learners. We applaud also the Department of Higher Education and Training for the opportunities that have been made available for those that have passed matric and other out-of-school youth. With only 180 000 first time students that can be accepted in our universities, it is very imperative to look at other avenues to be pursued by our students. The following are options that can be undertaken: · *Learnerships, Artisan and Internships*: from this learners can have an opportunity to earn skills before entering the job market · *Vocational and Continuing Education and Training*: Further Education and Training Colleges offers students a variety of courses that can be very useful to our country. With 50 public FET Colleges and 264 campuses they have the capacity to contribute meaningfully to our communities. In our University Based Branch Summit last year held in Durban we indicated our concern regarding continued financial and academic exclusions taking place in institutions of higher learning. We noted concerted efforts by management of institutions of higher learning to make education a commodity. This stems from the quasi autonomy given to these institutions to determine how they should be administered, with an oversight that these are public institutions with a particular expectation to deliver on the priorities of government. We reaffirmed our commitment to ensure an expedited implementation of free, quality and compulsory education for all. We will continue to engage the Ministry of Higher Education to progressively and radically move towards a total free education for all in the country. The merger of institutions of higher learning have not yielded any noticeable benefits to the previously disadvantaged institutions and individuals, instead the conditions in those institutions have worsened. This is evidenced by lack of qualified and experienced lecturers and in most instances students staying for a longer period without lectures due to non-availability of relevant lecturers in providing the requisite tuition. We demand a clearly defined approach of monitoring skills transfer, redistribution of resources and infrastructural development in the previously disadvantaged institutions. With the long queues witnessed in the beginning of last year with students demanding education, we call on the department of higher education and all universities to ensure that they are ready to welcome new entrants next year. This also means that there is a lack of capacity to accommodate the millions of youth who are unemployed, not in skills institutions and have not received any training. We are also humbled by the announcement and commitment made by the Ministry of Higher Education on progressively implementing free education. The fact that NSFAS will be now be extended to FET colleges and those students who perform well academically will be exempted to repaying NSFAS loan, is a clear indication of the commitment of the Ministry in taking forward our call for compulsory, quality free education for all. As the YCL we are still enraged by the fact that the Department of Basic education continued to publish matric results in newspapers. This does not only violate students’ privacy but boost the capitalist media as they made huge profits today selling papers. We have not lost hope on this matter and we hope to further engage the department for an end to this practice as it seeks to undermine wide-ranging assessment of pupils’ performance within the schooling cycle (from grade R to grade 12) and thereby elevating and focusing on the last ladder of performance (grade 12). It had always been our comprehensive assertion that the performance of grade 12 learners should be based on the preceding grades that mould these learners throughout the schooling lifespan. As for deplorable performance in the Eastern Cape Province on matric results, we would like to further urge the National Department of Basic Education to reinforce its interventions working together with relevant stakeholders towards stabilising and improving the quality of education in that province. Issued by the YCL Head Office For more information contact: Khaya Xaba YCL Media Liaison Officer Cell: 074 5 204 204 Landline: 011 339 3621 E-mail: [email protected] -- 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] .
