PASMA 2009 SRC ELECTIONS NATIONAL MANIFESTO
Accomodation
Higher education institutions are not widely spread as per the demand of us as the African youth across the country, yet this is supposed to be an involuntary but obligatory process that one from his/her elevation from secondary school should participate fully in order to be equipped with the necessary tools of breaking the shackles of mental oppression.
This however has not been achieved, and the African child once again is on the receiving end of trauma and frustration due to the fact that one cannot get a place to stay in the university he/she to going back home if he/she cannot afford private accommodation, commercialize their bodies, seek employment that will affect their academic advancement etc.
We totally rebuke the deplorable and inhumane treatment displayed by Universities with regard to provision of adequate accommodation and ensuring that residences are not only fit for human habitation but the campus must be in an area that safety and security are not compromised.
In view of the current material conditions, we say that all Universities for 2010 must commit to house at least 40% of the registered students in their campuses with an intention to increase yearly up until every student in need of university accommodation can be housed. We shall not compromise on this position, and we will win!!!!!
Basic services
Privatization of fundamental services such as: catering, security, transport, cleaning etc. is what continues to subject us as students to exploitation by these service providers charging exorbitant prices, equally so exploiting our parents (the working class) and this is all done in a venture to maxizimize profit, and not to provide quality services for students.
We call for a total eradication of outsourcing these fundamental services and the universities must take responsibility of employing staff to deliver these services in order to be totally liable and accountable for everything, in a venture to de-privatize and erode finance capital in education.
University fees will drop drastically because privatization affects students adversely. The ambiguous definition of who is responsible for what between the service provider and the Procurement department of the universities will be issues that will cease to exist and as students we shall get what is due to us, good quality services as the major stakeholders of higher education.
Curriculum content
Thousands of graduates every year are produced by our universities to become slaves of the modern economical domain in this country (private sector), secondly the qualifications that they posses have not equipped them enough to render their obligatory services to the African community.
This is caused by the fact that the curriculum content offered in our universities is base on foreign benchmarks and the system entirely does not provide permanent solutions that seek to address the critical challenges citizens of this country and the continent are facing, namely being: Skills shortage in South Africa; Poverty; Access to land and resources; Poor Grade 12 results yearly; and Poor throughput rate in universities.
As PASMA we re-iterate that we want the whole education system and curriculum to be revised and ensure that it becomes responsive to the challenges at hand, and that can only be done by equipping students with the knowledge that can enable them to be in a position to use effectively the resources in this country and continent currently in the hands of private sector.
As an organization we strive to inculcate the spirit of self reliance among students and the creation of community projects, secondly build and develop a sense of social responsibility among students and leadership qualities among students. Hence we totally rebuke the current academic curriculum.
Language policy
It is very appalling that there is not a single university that caters and for teaching and learning in any of the indigenous languages of the country within the 11 official languages.
Traditional Afrikaner Universities still instruct pre-dominantly in Afrikaans with English playing second fiddle, and indigenous languages not even considered for existence. Our fundamental principle of Africans as the rightful owners of the land, drawn form our ideological conviction as Pan Africanist, that of conforming to African majority
Our position is that each and every institution should have at least one of the indigenous languages also as a medium of instruction, far from only having English and Afrikaans as official mediums of instruction. Further than that all notes, test and exam question papers should also written in these languages in a quest to strike balance and not disadvantage any student from achieving academic excellence.
Logic then dictates that even indigenous language practitioners should be employed with no question period!!!! It is our strong conviction and a fact that we are the only country where indigenous people of the land don’t have maximum opportunity to express themselves in their tongue, let alone get an opportunity to do so. Africa for Africans is our unwavering position, just as much as China is for Chinese not Indians, Americans, nor Germans!!!!!
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