/ MEDIA STATEMENT / The content on this page is not written by Polity.org.za, but is supplied by third parties. This content does not constitute news reporting by Polity.org.za.

The African National Congress congratulates its National Executive Committee and National Working Committee member Comrade Ronald Lamola on attaining his second masters degree.

Comrade Lamola will today be conferred the Masters of Laws Extractive Industry Law in Africa by the University of Pretoria. His research focuses on the enforcement of social and labour plans. He currently holds a Masters Degree in Corporate Law where he explored the regulation of property syndication schemes. In particular his research looked at the roles of the regulators in the regulation of taking of deposits from the public, the conflation of the Companies Act, Banks Act and the Reserve Bank Act.

The former deputy president of the ANC Youth League, who grew up from humble beginnings on a small farm in Mpumalanga to assume various leadership roles within the congress movement and to become a successful lawyer, is a living example of what President Nelson Mandela poignantly uttered about the value of education when he said "Education is the great engine of personal development.

It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mine worker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another".

It is befitting that in the year which the ANC has declared as 100 Years of Nelson Mandela: The Year of Renewal, Unity and Jobs young leaders such as Comrade Lamola within our ranks and in society as a whole have taken it upon themselves to lead from the front and ensure that the importance of education as cherished by Madiba is not lost to the youth of today.

Furthermore, it is within this context that the ANC, at its 54th National Conference, in giving expression to the Freedom Charter when it says the doors of learning and culture shall be opened reaffirmed education as an apex priority of government's pro-poor policies and that it is a central pillar of our fight against the triple challenge of poverty, inequality and unemployment.

The ANC at its Nasrec conference adopted a resolution to roll out fully subsidised free higher education and training to academically capable, poor, working class and middle strata students as from the 2018 academic year. This will lead to the producing of a skilled generation that will be able to make a meaningful contribution to the building of a better society.

We call upon our young people to emulate Comrade Lamola and to take advantage of opportunities that are being made available to them to acquire education so as to improve their material conditions.

Issued by the African National Congress