The empirical link between the struggle for Free Education and Socialism

(Political Overview by the Regional Chair, Luzuko Buku to Western Region REC Meeting, 26 March 2010, NMMU)



"The real education of the masses can never be separated from their independent political, and especially revolutionary, struggle. Only struggle educates the exploited class. Only struggle discloses to it the magnitude of its own power, widens its horizon, enhances its abilities, clarifies its mind, forges its will." Lenin, War and Revolution (1917)

In greeting all of you comrades, in this second Regional Executive Committee meeting let us attempt to first unpack this quote by Lenin. As a matter of fact there is need of unpacking here as it is an indisputable fact that the real education of the masses is intertwined with political and revolutionary struggle and this is the approach that we should be taking as a revolutionary student movement. Students, young activists, comrades in arms allow us to welcome you in this meeting and thank you for having came so far to brace this magnanimous event. In officially opening this gathering comrades, we further request that you allow us to give a political overview of the political currents which we need to take into account when deliberating on matters of student importance during this meeting. A political overview is not an events overview, but it’s a general framework of the political trends internationally, nationally and within our region. It is these trends within which we should locate the decisions we take in every REC meeting.

Over and above, what we must clearly understand that we are leading a Marxist-Leninist student organisation that strives to radically transform the Higher Education and Further Education and Training Sector. We equally not isolate our struggle in these from the broader struggles in society, hence the need to emphatic on the dialectic link between the struggle for education transformation and the building of Socialism, as pronounced by the NGC.

The Global Situation

The first 16th Congress National Executive Committee described the global situation has one characterised by a pervasive capitalism, that has perpetually proven itself to be a failure to the majority working class of the world. The global financial crisis is just about one example of this. We must fully concur with the NEC in this regard and we must also that we need to further expose capitalism beyond the financial crisis. Capitalism exploits the working class and the poor day in day out. For the working class the financial crisis is not periodical but permanent as they have been living under crisis for the rest of their live. We must note that all this takes place right next to rampant opulence and lavish lifestyles lived by the bourgeoisie. It is our duty to expose this in all its forms and manifestation, class contradictions are sharpening now more than ever. Hence it is important to reiterate what Marx said when he stated that, “The history of, all hitherto existing society is that of class struggle.”

International Capital, via the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) have been calling for a drastic reduction of Higher Education in Africa, as it has developed in the Post- independence period. This reduction is called in the name of higher efficiency and more egalitarian distribution of educational resources. As Marxist-Leninist Scholars, we would know that those seeking regression, have historically never pronounced it by its name.

It is therefore clear that the World Bank’s attempt to cut down higher education comes from its bleak view of Africa’s economic future and its misguided belief that African workers are destined to remain unskilled labour for a long time. All of us know that its always a programme of Capital to create and maintain an unskilled labour as it cheap labour for it and therefore contributes largely on its cost cutting and profit maximising historical mission. Our call for free education should be located within this liberal onslaught against it, and we must further say it is with urgency that the transformation of the international situation is effected.

The National and Local Balances

Nationally we have received mixed signals for our call for Free education. Lets us put it, as a matter of principle, yet again that the struggle for free education is one of the Strategic objectives of SASCO and it must be on a system wherein Education itself will be de-commercialised and made a public good rather than a private commodity, hence the clarion call for Free Education and Socialism or rather Free Education in Socialism. This is so that we can link the struggle for Free Education to the struggle for Socialism. Criticising the trade union ‘economism’ proposed by Franklin Bernstein in What is to Be Done (1902), Lenin mentions this when he says, political agitation and propagation should aim at conscientising the workers to locate their economic struggle with the employers within the struggle for Socialism.



It is our task as student revolutionary to therefore engage in a process that will lead to the mass of students, whom we lead, to locate their struggles for free education within the context of the class struggle for the attainment of Socialism transitionary to Communism. This is so because this is the only society that can guarantee Free Universal Education. We must not confuse a tactical struggle with a strategic one, the call for a Free Education Fund does not necessarily mean the de-comodification of education and it will fall far to that, it is only in a mixed, working class led economy where we will attain proper Free Education. This must equally not derail us from waging tactical struggles, for an NSFAS Review that will see the gradual introduction of free-education, hence the welcoming and the description, by the 16th Congress NEC, of the NSFAS Review Report as “path-breaking” and “epoch making”.



Let’s forge a collective and concerted effort in fighting for the realisation of this objective. Whether it has failed or attained its task, the current membership of SASCO as led by the 16th National Executive Committee will be judged by whether it has waged this struggle towards a no return point both for the students and our liberal detractors.

Access, Equity and Redress VS Narrow expression on Quality

Our struggle has been that of access and success, equity and redress. Liberals and white apologist have responded by proposals centred on quality. How this discussion unfolds is that from our side, we are proposing that conditions that will guarantee the youth of South Africa to ACCESS education should be created and upon access conditions that will guarantee success should also be created. The Higher education funding model, curriculum transformation and institutional transformation are just but some of the things which we, as the student movement, have been bordering our policy articulations and struggles along. The remains no proper argument to dispute this.

In making these arguments we have further said that we aim to achieve equity, in that all students, regardless of race, class and gender, be treated equally in Higher Education Institutions. One last point that we have made is that higher education should focus on REDRESSING the imbalances of the past, so that it can contribute to transformation, nation-building and democratisation.

These proposals for the transformation of Higher Education have been met with liberal, racist and anti-transformational resistance centred on the call for the protection of QUALITY in Higher Education. In simplest terms, people who say this argue that the increase in black, working class and woman students in higher education institutions will decrease the quality of education and the institutions. This has been arguments in many former white institutions such as Rhodes University and NMMU, particularly South Campus. Of course, this is far from the truth; quality goes hand in hand with diversity. Even further the majority working class students in society are supposed to constitute the majority higher education and quality and academic freedom cannot be made obstacles to this.

Maqabane, students, comrades in arms, we have all identified the National Democratic Revolution pursued by the leading Revolutionary Alliance as one of the current paths with which to take in pursuit of our struggle for education transformation. Our relations with these structures proves to be true, but we must acknowledge the growing tensions between and within the organisational components of the alliance which are fuelled by class differences which manifest themselves in the succession debate in the 2012 Congress of the National Liberation Movement. We must clearly state that ours is a defence of the alliance.

As SASCO in this region, we must clearly know where we stand in these and our 2009 NGC sheds lights in this regards and the 16th Congress NEC have even went further to reiterate the NGC resolutions in relations to the Alliance and Succession in the National Liberation Movement. A question still remains,’ What has brought the Polokwane project into halt? Here we believe that the, “Alliance tension, Real or Imagined: (are) A combination of failed Reconfiguration and Blind Leadership ambitions.”

Closing Remarks

Comrades, leaders of this organisation, in ending, in our first REC meeting, we said the success of this structure will not be determined by how it has been able to imitate the structure before it, but on how it has been able to improve from where that structure has left. We are located in a better position to assess the strengths and weaknesses of that structure in forging a way forward.

As an attempt to contribute to political discussion and political growth within our region, we propose that there be an intense discussion after every political overview, so that we check if we are on par with issues that need to be address.

For Free Education and Socialism