Phakamile Hlubi’s article was a personalised attack at Blade Nzimande framed as a criticism of the NSFAS and its expansion, writes Isaac Luthuli.
Phakamile Hlubi’s article “Blade has doomed African youth to modern-day slavery” published in The Sunday Independent, May 14, refers.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Hlubi uses an individualised, liberal approach isolating the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Dr Blade Nzimande, from the ANC. She then uses her liberal isolation of Nzimande to mount a personalised attack at him framed as a criticism of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) and its expansion.
Hlubi accuses Nzimande, and Nzimande’s so-called ilk, to be nothing more than “cheerleaders for neo-liberalism”
On the contrary, it is Hlubi who is pushing neo-liberal propaganda as its mouthpiece.
It is she who, on April 5, in her capacity as acting spokesperson of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), actively marketed a statement issued by Irvin Jim, the union’s general secretary, demanding that “the state” must be the “employer of the last resort”. This is self-evidently hardcore neo-liberalism.
The idea originates from the bourgeoisie’s agenda to privately accumulate wealth. According to the bourgeoisie and its ideologues, economic control must rest in the hands of private enterprise.
The neo-liberal ideology that the state must be relegated to the “the employer of the last resort” is not Marxist. It is an antithesis of Marxism.
It is part of the capitalist agenda for the state not to intervene in the economy to bring to an end the exploitation of labour by capital and improve the quality of life of the workers and poor.
This could be the reason why Hlubi grossly ignored the department of higher education and training's success in expanding the NSFAS to students in technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges.
College students were excluded from the Tertiary Education Fund of South Africa (TEFSA) that was succeeded by the NSFAS post-1994. At its inception the NSFAS, taking its cue from TEFSA, continued the exclusion. Then technical and later further education and training college students fought against the exclusion.
They were led by the South African Colleges Student Association formed two years following the first democratic general election held in 1994.
There can be no doubt student debt needs to be addressed. But Hlubi’s half-truths are obviously misleading and will take the country nowhere except down a cul-de-sac of distress.
She suppressed the important fact that following his appointment in 2009 as the minister of the newly-created department of higher education and training, Nzimande implemented ANC policy adopted at its 52nd national conference in Polokwane in 2007 and expanded NSFAS coverage to TVET college students. Accordingly, all students eligible for the NSFAS in TVET colleges are not required to pay back a cent. The entire support they receive from the NSFAS after they pass is converted into a full bursary!
Hlubi is campaigning for, as part of solutions, Numsa and Zwelinzima Vavi, the former general secretary of Cosatu.
There is no problem with everyone playing a role towards overcoming the challenges faced by our country. But Hlubi’s “holier-than-thou” attitude claiming an absent moral superiority is deceptive. It does not represent an attempt to forge national unity for South Africans to work together.
The SA Communist Party stands for free, quality and scientific curricula across all schooling levels and technical, vocational and higher education for students from working class and poor households who cannot afford access. Students from rich and wealthy households must pay.
It is not unreasonable for graduates who themselves received state assistance to make a contribution towards others gaining access.
* Luthuli is deputy national secretary of the Young Communist League of SA.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.