SASCO.jpg SASCO Durban Central Statement, 3 January 2017 Newly-Proposed Student Funding System SASCO Durban Central region has read and attempted to understand the report and recommendations of the department of Higher Education and Training task team chaired by Nxasana which was entrusted with a responsibility to help realize the plight of SASCO as an organisation and South African Students at large, of Free and Quality Education. It is with great disappointment that seemingly, after such a long time, we have put our hopes on the people who did not understand the real call and the task which was given to them by students from the first place. The reports vividly indicate that this task team took a deliberate and arrogant detour which is completely perpendicular to the interest of students. Ours was to research about the feasibility of phasing in Free Education not to rename and reform NSFAS which is a debt sentence to us. As long as this NSFAS/ISFAP continues to be the banking system of benefiting capitalist in the higher education sector it remains to be a big compromise to us. Again we have lost patient and confidence in these counter-productive task teams which always brings recommendations which are anti-majoritarian and capitalistic in nature. Our call remains very clear and uncompromisingly Free Quality Education for all. The cosmetically conversion of NSFAS loan to Ikusasa Student Financial Aid Program which is also a loan is a clear indication of the unwillingness and the lack of political will to decisively respond to the national crisis of funding. We reject this ISFAP with both hands and we remain resolute with our call for Free Quality Education not loans. To us, this intervention reflects high level of arrogance by the ruling class, the bourgeoisie class who are well off and afford education for their children, that we, as the children of the working class must sustain poverty through loans so that we shall always be indebted and remain to be a subject of exploitation and cheap labour to sustain the oppressive market. Our struggle has never been about the naming of the aid scheme but was about abolition it in totality. Taking the funding scheme to the hands of the private sector through the claimed "Private-Public Partnership" is suicidal for both SASCO and the nation as a whole, because we all know that the only interest of the private sector is profit maximisation and in a case of South Africa, a pro-capitalist country, that only happens through exploitation of the poor and the working class. Instead of improving from the support that government has been offering to students, the private sector has nullified and undermined the operating system and has raised alarms on its leniency on loan recovery process implying that it will be harsh on interests and repayments as its top priority. It has guts to publicly declare that it doesn't have confidence on our democratically elected government, we also have no confidence on the private sector as proven by the brutality and oppression endured by the working class due to privatization by White Monopoly Capital. We are landless and poor today because of this greedy corporate world which accumulates wealth at our expense. Durban Central region calls for the department to continue manage and administer these funds not ManCo. ManCo and FunCo must pump funds to the department as part of its social responsibility legislative policy not the other way around, as these private entities have no bidding responsibility to service the nation but just privately own, which might cost us as a nation when for some strange reasons, these investors decide to collapse their entities. We vertically and sharply reject any form of privatisation, actually its counters the envisaged vision of socialization of economic heights of our nation. We also noting the capitalist tendency which seeks to show its ugly head and trying to hook and crook this program of NSFAS by trying to privatise it. The reluctance of the Institutions of higher learning to disclose and avail funds from their reserves to support the campaign of raising funds symbolises in bold letters that the real enemy is the institutional autonomy which is distanced and exclusive from our societal desires. Former White institutions continues to enjoy apartheid preserved benefits in the form of funds while our own previously disadvantaged and black institutions such as DUT, UNIZULU, etc remains to struggle. This autonomy widens the imbalances between these institutions and undermines the whole transformation agenda we are pursuing as the nation. Last but not least, we appeal to all progressive forces in the higher education sector, unions, communities and government to also reject the possible dictatorship of the private sector, to review and re-mandate the task team to shape it focus on Free Quality Education which will be state administered at the state expense not this capitalistic and profit driven problematic-solution. We call for the state to capacitate itself through radical means to draw private sector on its knees to sustain Free Education not to dictate its terms and conditions. It is only our democratically elected government that we trust with our social well-being; that we can hold accountable for the functioning of the funds and the state general not FunCo. Away with ISFAP, away! Amandla! Issued by: Durban Central Region Regional Executive Committee For more information: Thabo Sukanazo Tsheme, Regional Secretary, 078 278 5713, <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] Ngcebo Magaqa Mazibuko, Regional Chairperson, 072 538 0212, <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 14709 (20170103) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com -- -- 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. 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