NATASHA MARRIAN: Apathetic ANC fiddles while higher education burns
THE sight of burning books has become yet another symbol of SA’s hopeless political leadership.At the ANC’s Polokwane conference in 2007, the party resolved to "progressively introduce free education for the poor until undergraduate level". At its Mangaung conference in 2012, it resolved that the policy for free higher education to all undergraduate students would be finalised for adoption before the end of 2013.At the end of last year, students took to the streets to demand what the governing party had promised.The National Development Plan — the mythical unicorn the government is meant to be implementing — describes higher education as a "major driver of the information/knowledge system, linking it with economic development".It states boldly: "Universities are key to developing a nation."Yet they are now burning, because of a failure by the government to implement its own party’s policies.Students and parents are in limbo as President Jacob Zuma’s habitual solution to mask his gov...
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