Cape Town - After drumming up enough support and convincing delegates at the South African Student Congress (Sasco) conference in Johannesburg, Gqeberha-born Nosiphiwo Ngqunge was elected the Secretary General (SG).
Ngqunge, 26, takes over the reins in the all important role after at least 500 delegates supported her election.
She has vowed to use her new role to ensure that students from poorer schools can access universities come January.
The human resources management and business administration graduate, who first joined Sasco in 2016, won the election unopposed.
She was tipped to be going up against Alungile Kamtshe.
Ngqunge also wants to use the platforms available to her to tackle GBV and crime among students at South African universities and Technical Vocational Education and Training colleges.
Gaining ground in universities and colleges that had previously been lost to other political organisations for students was also high on her agenda.
“Our plan is always to start by helping students access institutions of higher learning through admissions, financial aid, and placement in proper student housing,” Ngqunge said.
Ngqunge said her team would then tackle issues that second-year students and post-graduate students face.
“It’s through championing issues that students face that we win SRC elections,” she said.
Ngqunge said the team also had plans to challenge online elections at universities as they believed university management tampered with the results.
This comes after allegations that the Nelson Mandela University’s Student Representative Council elections were hosted on a server located outside South Africa, potentially violating new data protection legislation.
The DA had managed to win the elections. At the time, then-Sasco president Bamanye Matiwane said they would challenge the matter in court.
Ngqunge said she would continue to prioritise the matter.
“We are still formulating a way to beat that and ensure that the online systems are not handled by university management,” she said.