The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] supports the memorandum of demands by the South African Union of Students [SAUS] to the Department of Higher Education and Training [DHET] in relation to the 2020 registration in all 26 universities.
Our support for the demands by SAUS is propelled by the struggle faced by students especially those from poor background in their quest to access higher education. The education system in the country continues to side-line students from working class families and it is set up to only cater only for those with deep pockets.
The demands by SAUS are as follows:
- All students with historical debt must be allowed to register in all universities
- Examination results, academic records and certificates must be issued to students even if they are owing
- Accreditation of students’ accommodation must be revised to ensure that all deserving students receive places to stay
- Free registration for all vulnerable, poor and the missing middle students
- Increase of enrolment quotas
- A clear implementation plan for students mental health, safety and security in campuses
- An inclusion of UNISA in all National Student Financial Aid Scheme [NSFAS] allowances
- NSFAS appeals process must be made transparent, efficient and responsive to ensure that students do not lose their spaces in universities
- Ending of the exclusionary policy of N+1 by NSFAS and call for the reinstatement of N+2 in relation to NSFAS funding eligibility
- Unfair treatment of security guards and cleaners and the in-sourcing of general workers
- The urgent challenges of higher education transformation affecting both students and workers.
The national union believes that the demands by SAUS are genuine and reasonable hence we call upon DHET to accede to these demands urgently. NEHAWU will intensify the call for the African National Congress [ANC] and the President in particular to convene a national summit on education along the overarching vision of the South African society [people’s education for people’s power] not as a rhetoric but as a yardstick to measure progress registered thus far.
Lastly, NEHAWU will meet the South African Students Congress [SASCO] and the Young Communist League of South Africa [YCLSA] to further discuss the NSFAS model characterised by management and policies orientated to a loan scheme system which is a complete contradiction to free education subsidiary scheme. In this regard, we call on all our allies and other progressive forces in the higher education band to venture into a national dialogue aimed at providing an alternative to totally subsidize free education in its totality.
Issued by NEHAWU Secretariat