The Congress of South African Students(COSAS ) assembled for its first National Executive Committee meeting from 17th-19th March 2023 at Morula Sun hotel in Pretoria, Gauteng province.
The meeting throughly reflected and reviewed the ideological posture and approach to the classroom struggle, identified ancient challenges around the classroom struggle and reaffrimed its commitment to work towards influencing and amending policies, attaining free, quality, accesible and decolonised education in our lifetime.
CLASSROOM STRUGGLE
The NEC commended the excellent and hardwork by activists, leaders and members of COSAS throughout the country during the Back2school campaign.
We congratulate the class of 2022 for its excellent academic work. We encourage those who did not meet the minimum requirements to ascend into institutions of higher learnering and look out for the opportunities that are available to them through various government stakeholders like the NYDA and the Presidential youth employment initiative.
The meeting strenghtened the call for ICT implementation in our schools through the use of smart boards and tablets. We commend the Gauteng provincial education department for its schools of specialization and emphasize that this be a national program. These progressive school must also exist in the most rural of provinces.
SCHOOLAR TRANSPORT
The collective is deeply concerned by the number of learners lost in road related accidents, mistreated in schoolar transport vehicles. We emphasize the need for monitoring and servicing of schoolar transport to ensure if its road worthy. We call for qualified drivers and intensify the ‘one matric certificate, one driver’s license’ program to be implementeted. We also note with disgust the deficiency of schoolar transport, especially in rural provinces where learners have to walk more than 10 km to and from school. A huge contributing factor to the drop out statistics.
ORGANISATIONAL CAPACITY
NWC/HODs
As guided by the Constitution, a democratical process prevailed in electing the National Working Committee(NWC)
- Sphesihle Gumbi(M)
- Lebo Moabi(F)
- Katlego Makofane(M)
- Cordelia Bosch (F)
- Lonwabo Gade(M)
The NEC meeting deliberated around pertinent issues relating to the life of the organization. Acknowledging that the organisation has been infested with factionalism, incompetence and a decline in political awareness and the guides of the organisation. A majority of provinces have been relatively unstable and adminstratively incapacitated and thefore the NEC resolved to disband the following provinces:
