EFF calls on Higher Education to provide digital learning devices for all students

12 May 2020

The EFF calls on the Department of Higher Education to provide digital learning devices for all students who cannot afford. It is clear that all previously white university institutions have managed to proceed with their curriculum despite the national lockdown. This is because the majority of these institutions drew from their apartheid attained riches and privilege to forge a pathway for virtual learning under the general conditions imposed by COVID-19.

All historically black institutions, on the other hand, have been left behind and on their own.

Students and teachers in these institutions have no apartheid wealth or legacy to draw from.

In fact, they already existed in permanent states of poverty, under-resourced and generally overcrowded.

It is the duty of a responsible government to look out for the poor and historically disadvantaged. The state should not hesitate to purchase laptops and data for all students in historically black universities so that their learning can also continue virtually. There is no justification that simply because a black child does not have access to digital learning equipment, they must suffer a lack of higher education.

It is the duty of a responsible government always to make sure that learning is never a privilege, but a right equally enjoyed by all. As things stand, the ANC government is at the forefront of dumping a generation of mostly African youth into illiteracy and under-educatedness; from Grade 1 up to universities.

Let there be #0neStudentOneLaptop so that virtual learning continues even in historically black institutions.

Issued by Vuyani Pambo, National Spokesperson, EFF, 12 May 2020