*YCLSA Western Cape* January 26, 2012
*Press statement on the proposed fee increments at CPUT* The Young Communist League of South Africa [uFasimba] in the Western Cape Province wishes to condemn the spoilt attitude of the management and council at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, especially in its attempt to exclude learners from the working class and poor background, through increasing tuition fees excessively and imposing exorbitant upfront payments. As the YCLSA we find amongst, others, these tendencies as an artificial barrier, especially for those learners who have passed Grade 12, to exclude them from post schooling education system. It’s unfortunate that features of apartheid capitalism remain intact such as restricting access to education for all, almost seventeen (17) years since our democratic breakthrough. The Cape Peninsula University of Technology Council is having a moral obligation, as entrusted with the custody of the University to ensure that learners from the working class and poor background are admitted in the institution, commodifying education is nothing else but a neo-liberal agenda which is a discredited system all over the world, as it is all about, amongst others maximizing profit. As the YCLSA we find the inability or intransigence by the University management and the council to timeously, efficiently and effectively handle and resolve student related matters as indictment and betrayal to our revolution, especially during the month of January, when we, as young people, under the leadership of YCLSA, we are busy celebrating life and times of one of our finest revolutionary, comrade Joe Slovo, the former General Secretary and National Chairperson of the South African Communist Party, leader of the African National Congress, Chief of Staff of uMkhonto weSizwe and the Minister of Housing. We will continue as the YCLSA to advance our call, for a free post schooling education in South Africa, as the final solution to these problems whilst acknowledging and supporting measures that are in place meant to progressively realize free and quality education within the context of Polokwane resolutions. At the same time as the YCLSA we welcome the Green Paper released by the Ministry of Higher Education and Training, we see this as the positive step, in addressing some of these education challenges in our post schooling system, we need a system of education that will assist the development agenda of our revolution, especially in creating a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic, united and prosperous South Africa. The YCLSA also welcomes the centralized system of registration, proposed by the Ministry of Higher Education and Training, we hope it will go a long way in resolving registration related problems such as congestions at registrations points resulting in some institutions procuring heavy handed Security Firms for crowd control with no respect for human dignity, with no or poor training in crowd control as some of them are tenderpreneurs, delays in the commencement of tuition, learners far away from these institutions will not be spending time and resources travelling in between their homes and institutions for registration, do away with double or multiple registrations accompanied with double or multiple registration fee, this in the main will benefit learners from working class and poor background. As the YCLSA in the Western Cape we are calling upon the management and the council to rise above narrow accumulation interests of seeking to commodify education and to enter into a meaningful engagement with student bodies, South Africa's democratic breakthrough was achieved through meaningful dialogue, to an extent to the detriment of the majority, though much has been achieved since 1994 a learner from the working class and poor background, especially in rural areas is still haunted with more barriers in accessing education. As the YCLSA we are calling upon on the Ministry of Higher Education and Training to find some way of addressing these exorbitant upfront payments in all institutions of higher learning, which at times are not standardized and used in some institutions, to restrict access by learners from working class and poor background. We will mobilize as the YCLSA in the Western Cape young people across the province, in their masses, working with Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA) to protest at CPUT in solidarity of learners' demands, if CPUT is dragging its feet in addressing the plight of learners. Issued by the YCLSA in the Western Cape For more information contact: Disang Mocumi Provincial Spokesperson Cell: 072 677 5940 -- 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] .
