Media Statement, 6 January, 2015 NEHAWU Congratulates the Class of 2014 NEHAWU, the biggest national union organising in universities and technical and vocational education and training colleges (TVET), congratulates all Grade 12 learners, who have successfully passed their Grade 12 examinations in 2014.We send our heartfelt sympathies to those who did not pass and call on them to explore available options that are offered by the department of basic education. They should not view this momentary accident of life as the end of the world. Teachers and parents should work together to counsel these students and help them to make use of the NYDA Second Chance Programme ,so as to avoid them suffering from the kind of stress and depression that will result in suicide. We congratulate all the stakeholders for their efforts in helping this next generation of youngsters to reach such a milestone, but we are concerned by the figures that show that the pass rate of 75, 8 % represents a 2, 4% decline from the previous year's results. We are also alarmed by the statistics that show that of the 1, 1 million students, who entered the school in 2002 less than 50 % wrote the matric examinations in 2014. All stakeholders should work together to arrest this decline and correct this disquieting anomaly. The biggest challenge now is to ensure that these students are all accommodated in institutions of higher learning, and there is no academic or social exclusion of those students from poor backgrounds and rural communities. We are concerned that some universities are still implementing draconian admission criterion and this combined with the financial exclusions are used to exclude learners from the poor and rural communities. All higher education stakeholders should start adopting a developmental consciousness and commitment to our society. NEHAWU calls on the department of Higher Education to allocate more resources to the TVET colleges and ensure that, they have an innovative curriculum, lecturer and staff training and workplace exposure for the students. We applaud the efforts that have gone into building new universities in Northern Cape and Mpumalanga but, we are calling for more stakeholder engagement and the increase in the resources allocated to these new institutions. We expect that the campuses will be taken closer to the working class communities, so as to improve access for the previously disadvantaged. NEHAWU appreciates the gradual increase in funding for the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NFSAS) over the last couple of years, but we are still adamant that education should be made free and we will continue to work with the Progressive Youth Alliance and other stakeholders to campaign for "Free Education". We also reiterate our call to universities that they should plan better and improve their registration processes so as to eliminate the long lines that are a permanent feature every year during this period. Issued by: NEHAWU Secretariat Office For further information, please contact: Sizwe Pamla, NEHAWU Media Liaison Officer, 011 833 2902 / 082 558 5962 Email: [email protected] Visit NEHAWU website: www.nehawu.org.za -- -- 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] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
