NUMSA urges President Jacob Zuma to implement free quality decolonized education today!
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) urges President Jacob Zuma to ignore the findings of the Herher Commission into the Feasibility of Free Higher Education and Training in South Africa, and to implement free quality decolonized education today. The commission was chaired by Justice Jonathon Arthur Herher and sat for 22 months investigating the viability of free education.
One of the key findings of the commission was that it found that free education was not viable. This is rubbish. Instead, it recommended that the banks replace the state funding mechanism, NFSAS, with the called Income Contingency Loan (ICL). The commission recommended that commercial banks issue government-guaranteed loans to the students that are payable by the person once they graduate and upon attainment of a specific income threshold.
NUMSA rejects, with the contempt it deserves, the findings of the Herher Commission. The insistence on loans as a means of accessing education is nothing more than slavery through indebtedness. It is a way to sustain the racial inequalities between the rich white and emerging black middle class children, and the poor African children. Upon graduating, rich white and black children will have no loans to service while children of poor working class parents who are already struggling under the burden of unemployment and extremely low wages, while supporting 3 to 5 family members, will graduate from university with the additional burden of a loan which they must pay off. This is racist and classist sadism at its best!
South Africa hosts some of the richest capitalists in the world. It is one of the richest countries on Earth. It can very well afford to fund universal, decolonized and quality education from birth to death, for its people.