Free education in South Africa is overdue, and feasible

The Bafokeng Land Buyers Association is appalled by the attitude the ANC-led Government has taken against the legitimate call for the universal human right for free education in South Africa. Why do young people have to struggle and suffer to get an education?

The justified call for free education, no different from the R12 500 minimum wage called for by slain Lonmin strikers at Marikana, indicates that South Africans are under tremendous economic pressure, and the ANC-led Government remain uncaring and directionless.

Unemployment levels in South Africa are at unacceptable high and still rising, and so are student fees.

The many South Africans who still wish to invest their future in their education, some with at least two tertiary qualifications already, are in fact despondent and fearful of the glim future they face without jobs.

Under the pretext that the quality of education and acquired qualifications are sub-standard, the few available jobs in the country remain reserved for a privileged few; foreign skilled employees; and for siblings of the few captains of industry who own the South African economy.

While estimates suggest that R70billion per annum is required to fund a free education system in South Africa, it is estimated on the same breath that well over R50billion is not accounted for annually in South African Municipalities, with well over R20billion per annum wasted.

With the South African economy richly endowed with natural resources, it was no surprise that Sir Cradock, the then British Governor of the Cape Colony in South Africa, proclaimed in 1813 that all precious metals including gold, diamonds and platinum remain the property of the imperialist British Crown. The proclamation finds expression today in the World Bank-guided Mining and Petroleum Resources Development Act.

Major mining companies in South Africa today, including political parties and traditional leaders, are still either British or American owned. It is no wonder billions of rands worth of our precious resources leave our shores unaccounted for.

Further, when 80% of rich South African land is still owned by companies and private persons who pay absolutely no allegiance to the South African transformation and reconciliation agenda, it cannot be that the ANC-led Government and the State Intelligence community are not aware of the dire state.  

That said, it does not make sense for the pressed South Africans to continue paying for education. It has become meaningless and actually not worth it to be educated in South Africa.  Education in South Africa is clearly no longer a meal ticket out of poverty, the low quality of which further upsets scholarship.

The South African education system scores high for classification as a crime against humanity. With its NSFAS and other financial aid schemes, the system is nothing but one big financial scam, and the ANC leadership complicit.   

The South African call for free education, is in fact a call for universal freedoms; and for freedom from servitude. This is not a call that young people in particular should be fighting, or persecuted for.

The World community, South Africans, and South Africans in the diaspora, are all urged to support the noble movement for universal free education!

Now!