The SACP congratulates those students who have done well during 1999 across all the grades, particularly matriculants who are now facing new challenges in their lives.

The SACP has declared this year "the year of building people's power for the eradication of poverty". Poverty remains the biggest enemy of our democracy, more so in rural areas. Since our schools are a reflection of the social fabric of our society, they simultaneously reflect the degrees and effects of poverty. Education in itself is an important element in addressing poverty.  The social disparities that continue to plague our people can best be expressed through educational access and opportunity - the failure rate is but one reflection.

We call on all education stakeholders to begin the year 2000 by decisively breaking with the past and turn year 2000 in to the year for effective learning and teaching at schools. Courage will be needed to overcome the legacy of apartheid colonialism and segregated education, as manifested in the poor pass rate. This is the case, particularly in comparison between those schools supported by private capital and former white schools and under resourced public sector schools.

The SACP firmly believes that the failure rate is not a true reflection of the potential of our students. We should not throw up our arms in desperation, but seek creative methods with which we can assist students to realise their full potential.

At the same time we should not be oblivious to the fact that the failure rate affects all grades, not merely grade twelve students.
The poor pass rate in the entire schooling system, particularly the schools serving the black majority, continues to be an expression of the apartheid legacy.

Overcoming this requires a comprehensive remedy to the problem.

The SACP calls upon government to look into all possible ways and means of providing additional basic resources in the most needy schools and for these resources to be earmarked for eliminating the backlogs in the education sector. The fat that more than 30% of our school centers do not have toilets at all or have pit latrines, is an expression of the urgency to provide
these additional resources.

In relation to school leavers, the government needs to develop a comprehensive, multi-pronged strategy that is linked to
labour skills development, job summit resolutions and further education and training programmes. Such a strategy needs to be approached within the broader context of job creation, linking up with public works programmes and welfare department programmes on poverty alleviation. This will accommodate many school leavers.

We further call on students to adopt a new attitude to their education - to commit themselves to hard work and to increase their efforts from the beginning of the year. We also call on parents to get more involved in their children's education and fully participate in the school governing bodies. Finally, we call on teachers to put extra effort in improving the learning environment and in addressing the issue of teachers who are not doing their work.

The SACP is committed to building dynamic and democratic school governing bodies to improve the state of education. To this extent we have accepted an invitation to meet with the Deputy Minister of Education to look into matters of education broadly, and the role that the SACP can play in this regard.

Lastly, the SACP calls upon students to go back to school in bigger numbers and be part of a dynamic and productive learning process. In the words of Moses Kotane the former General Secretary of the SACP "The future is in your hands and it will be what you make of it"

10 January 2000
Issued by the SACP Department of Information & Publicity
E-Mail: sacp1@wn.apc.org
South African Communist Party Head Office
COSATU House No. 1 Leyds Street
7th Floor Braamfontein 2001
Republic of South Africa
(Tel: 27 11 339-3621/2)
(Fax: 27 11 339-4244)