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The Congress of South African Students is a 39-year-old organisation founded with an aim of “coordinating student at high school against the discriminative education system”.
Its mission is to strive for a spirit of cooperation and trust between students, parents and teachers. The question one can raise under the current situation is whether Cosas is still relevant in the current dispensation.
To answer this question, let us first take a journey through some of the activities of this once respectable and strategic organisation.
In September, Wandile Mofokeng, Cosas Gauteng provincial chairperson, threatened teachers. During an interview on eNCA, he threatened teachers with violence (used the word “moer”) if they continued teaching during a one-day national shutdown. This was in direct contradiction with what Sasco was founded on – to foster cooperation and trust between the students, teachers and parents.
When Cosas was formed in 1979, it was intended to mobilise students at high schools against the ruthless apartheid system to destabilise education. The apartheid system has fallen and that is where the relevance of Cosas needs to be interrogated.
This organisation is politically aligned to the African National Congress and that is where the problem is. High school learners have been linked with the ANC through Cosas and, just like what has been happening with other alliance partners, this organisation has weakened its position of principle of the apartheid days and started fighting battles that have nothing to do with the advancement of the education in schools.
The South African Schools Act legislated the representative council of learners as the constitutional structure of representativity at schools and the members are democratically elected. The focus and the function of this structure is to assist with the discipline of the school and other related policy matters within the school. This makes them relevant and allows them to co-manage with the parents and teachers.
It looks like the Cosas understanding of playing its part is grounded on disrespect and disruptions.
Will education suffer without the existence of Cosas? Not at all. I think schools will function better without Cosas.
I have had experience with the functioning of the students council and have found them to be more hands-on when it comes to what is needed in schools.
The contribution that these young people have made during policy drafting and adoption has been huge and respectable.
I think in some schools the functionality of the leaners council needs to be strengthened simply because, where there are failures, those failures were pointing to a capacity issue. The intimidation and recklessness of Cosas should not be tolerated at the expense of the education of the black child.
What is also painful is that this organisation is mainly active in the African township schools. They weaken what has already been weakened by the structural problems in the education system.
Cosas was relevant at that time when the monster of apartheid was to be brought to its knees, but now this organisation has become redundant and irrelevant – nothing more than an populist congregation striving for relevance.
For it to keep its relevance as a voluntary revolutionary organisation, Cosas should restructure and give away its political inclination and start functioning to advance the course of the millions of high school learners or dissolve.
• Maano Ramadwa is a motivational speaker, author of the book Teach to Inspire, founder of the Maano Ramadwa Education Foundation and a former high school principal
