Ramaphosa on Sasco: ‘We must never have career student leaders’

The President of the African National Congress (ANC) Cyril Ramphosa has called on the SA Student Congress (Sasco) to reaffirm its role as a stakeholder in higher education and create an environment that allows for academic success.

Ramaphosa addressed the student organisation’s virtual anniversary celebration on Sunday, 6 September 2020.

“We need a strong Sasco that will ensure that conditions at institutions of higher learning are improved and are conducive for academic excellence and success,” he said.

Ramaphosa further said Sasco’s success was linked to the ANC’s in building an educated society based on the vision of the Freedom Charter which was drafted by their forebears.

Ramaphosa: ‘We must never have career student leaders’

“Sasco is too important an organisation not to succeed. Your future as an organisation is that you should succeed in executing the objectives of our revolution”

Ramaphosa said as young revolutionaries, they had a responsibility to shape the future of the country and needed to engage the ANC on a number of platforms.

He has further encouraged leaders within Sasco to turn to their older counterparts in the ANC for advice.

“It is very important to mention that contradicting the ANC on policy matters should not be the same as headline and sound bite driven populism of shouting down from rooftops everything, the ANC does or says”, Ramaphosa said.

“Our revolution is doomed to fail if we do not consistently and continuously win society over in the battle of ideas. This is where highly conscientised students under the banner of the student movement Sasco play a key role.”

The ANC president said students have a responsibility to make use of all opportunities, and to pass modules, in pursuit in yet another objective of Sasco, which is academic excellence.

“Our revolution requires people, who have a great deal of capability and excellence. We must never have career student leaders, who become gatekeepers preventing others from accessing higher education’, he continued.

Sasco voices demands

Sasco also wasted no time in listing some of its demands, including an increase of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) threshold for students eligible for funding to be increased from R350 000 to R650 000 per anum.

“We demand the dissolution of councils of historically disadvantaged universities that have failed to transform the institutions of higher learning we demand the speedy appointment of the NFSAS board we demand the speedy delivery of laptops to all children of leaders from working-class backgrounds transformation of TVET colleges to be institutions of choice”, said Sasco president Bamaye Matiwane.