Thursday, October 20, 2016

SACP Gauteng Welcomes Improvements in the Resumption of the Higher Education Academic Year
The South African Communist Party (SACP) Gauteng Province congratulates the student movement, the SA Students Congress (SASCO), the Progressive Youth Alliance and the Young Communist League (YCL) for leading the resumption of the academic programme in institutions of higher learning.

We are encouraged that while there are marginal sections in our campuses that are hell bent on disrupting learning, the majority of the student population have gone back to class.

We believe that the return to class brings the much needed impetus and moral high ground to take forward the historic demand for a working class biased free quality education as expressed in the Right to Learn Campaign.

We remain convinced that the recent wave of violence, anarchy and destruction undermines the historic validity of this demand and the right to learn.

We believe that the struggle for free quality higher education should be biased towards students from poor and working backgrounds. We believe that the general demand for free higher education that completely ignores the history of our country will further deepen and entrench class inequalities.

We reaffirm our conviction that the struggle for free higher education biased towards the working class and the right to learn are not direct opposites.

As a matter of emphasis, attending classes and siting for exams for purposes of academic development is a revolutionary duty. We therefore wish university students well in their exams.

We are confident that students will approach exams with a sense of urgency and determination necessary to avoid the painful and most stressful reality of academic exclusion, which becomes even more complex when interwoven with financial exclusion.

We strongly condemn the destruction of public property that is the common heritage of all our people and the social content of our national liberation.

We therefore reject with contempt and denounce as extremely backward notions of destruction of campus property on grounds of police brutality. We are convinced that one is not the basis of the other.

While police and the administration of justice must defend public property, it does not belong to police or the authorities, but to the people as a whole. We believe the destruction of property hurts directly, communities and the people.

Issued by the SACP Gauteng province

Contact:

Jacob Mamabolo - SACP Gauteng Provincial Secretary
Mobile: 082 884 1868

Lucian Segami - SACP Gauteng Provincial Spokesperson
Mobile: 079 522 0098

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