NEHAWU Congratulates The Matric Class of 2024
Wednesday January 15, 2025
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] congratulates all grade 12 learners who wrote and successfully passed the 2024 matric examinations and accordingly obtained their National Senior Certificate.
We also encourage learners who were not successful not to despair, but to try again. In this regard, we call on the Department of Basic Education [DBE] to provide support for learners who were not successful and encourage them to register for the Second Chance Programme.
The national union salutes all educators especially our sister union, SADTU for their sterling work towards these impressive results, despite the numerous challenges facing them at the workplace.
As NEHAWU, we welcome the fact that the overall national pass rate improved from 82.9 in 2023 to 87.3% representing the highest pass rate since the dawn of democracy.
We welcome the significant improvement in provinces such as Eastern Cape, North West and Limpopo as rural provinces and this must be commended, however there is still much more work to be done to ensure that disparities between rural and urban provinces are eliminated.
As NEHAWU, we call on government and all stakeholders to ensure that all deserving students are accommodated in higher learning institutions. We call on universities and other institutions of higher learning to diligently prepare for the registration process to ensure access particularly for those who are from historically disadvantaged communities. We further call all institutions of higher learning to refrain from implementing their preposterous admissions criteria and also re-assess their inflexible financial demands because they systematically exclude learners from the poor and working-class background.
Equally, we call on the National Student Financial Aid Scheme {NSFAS} to provide financial support to poor students in order to help them to register and pay for their studies to avert subjecting them from roaming around the streets on the basis that they could not get funding to further their studies.
The union, in its central executive committee held in December 2024, took a conscious decision to convene an urgent meeting with SADTU, COSAS, SASCO, YCL and ANCYL including SACP and COSATU to discuss the coordination of education as a societal issue in order to assist and support registration and reopening of schools. In this regard, the union will rallying behind the Right to Learn Campaign of SASCO and YCLSA, which primarily is about ensuring access and success to education for all students in particular those from the working class background.
Lastly, NEHAWU will work tirelessly with all working class formations to mobilize the working class and society along the overarching South African vision the – “People’s Education for People’s Power” guided by the long defined features namely: destroying the backwardness of the apartheid system; mass – based education; reach-out to all the people of this country - be they young and old, in farms, in towns or cities; not serving the interest of the rich; be based on the actual experience of our people; uncovering the cultural heritage of our people; unify the nation and paving the way for people’s power (in control of both political and economic power). Indeed, this mobilization will be possible through revamping and re-establishing organs of people’s power in different components or sectors of the education band. Thus, we call on all working class formations and progressives to ready themselves for the creation of the Education Front, as a new vehicle meant to reawaken the entire working class to take full responsibility for education of the nation than over rely in government and the few in society.
END
Issued by NEHAWU KwaZulu-Natal Office
For more information, please contact: Ayanda Zulu (Provincial Secretary) at 081 758 5199 or email: Ayandaz@nehawu.org.za or
Ntokozo Nxumalo (Provincial Deputy Secretary) at 0815255983 or email: Ntokozo@Nehawu.org.za
Visit https://www.nehawu.org.za
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