SACP Western Cape rejects UCT Neo-liberal Admission Policy

The South African Communist Party in the Western Cape recognises the proposed changes to University of Cape Town's admission policies as a neo-liberal and anti-majoritarian offensive that parallels the policies of the Democratic Alliance which are being pursued by the provincial government that it leads in the Western Cape.

The UCT proposal is to remove race as an indicator from its admission policy and replace it with a range of socio-economic factors. Substantively this will replace the imperative of historic redress from UCT policy, amounting to the opting out by UCT from our national constitutional order.

The current proposal has been calculated to have a negative impact on the number of black youth qualifying for admission, while further skewing the demographics in favour of white students who already monopolise a disproportionate share of the available space. The outcome will directly compromise the interests of the South African working class, comprised of blacks in general and Africans in particular.

The SACP views the proposed change of policy as a confirmation that the University of Cape Town has always prioritised the reproduction of neo-liberal ideas and in promoting them it has been willing to perpetrate the right-wing and anti-majoritarian onslaught.

Behind this policy change is a concerted effort, by those who have never accepted real and fundamental change in this country, to arrest progressive developments not just at UCT, but also in the Western Cape Province and eventually in Higher Education nationally if they can. In place of redress for the past, these reactionaries advocate for what amounts to a regression to the past.

Since the democratic dispensation from 1994, transformation at UCT has been uneven and limited, with only modest changes in the demographics of the student body and insignificant achievements in transforming the profile of the teaching and technical staff.

To change horses mid-stream and retreat to the racist policies which have been consistently overturned since the democratic breakthrough in 1994 just because the current makes progress difficult, is no indication of strength and resolve, but a cowardly retreat to mediocrity and complacency albeit in the name of maintaining UCT rankings in to top 200 universities.

The SACP recognises in the proposed change of policy a reaction against the National Democratic Revolution led by the ANC, and against national policies, founded on the principles of South Africa's world-class Constitution, to redress the apartheid legacy.

The dangers of neo-liberalism is not that it posits an alternative ideology to that which inspired the liberation movement, but that it proposes a retreat from the worthy ideals of a more egalitarian and ultimately non-racial society enshrined in the Freedom Charter. Far from advancing individual worth, it seeks to reproduce a society in which a few are extended privileges in order to exploit the many that are consigned to a base existence of service to private capital.

This proposal forces UCT to face a choice does it join the mainstream of South African society in pursuit of a future genuinely democratic and non-racial South Africa, or does it retreat into privileged complacency because it prioritises an inappropriate ideology over genuine engagement with the real world?

Thus today UCT's management is leading a debate that seeks to undermine policies that are meant to address the imbalances of the past in favour of a status quo of mediocrity and complacency. If the direction they propose is chosen, it will be not only a victory for a conservative and unrepresentative minority, but foremost and tragically a massive defeat for the aspirations, ambitions and capacities of at least a generation of South Africa's young people. On that history will judge UCT and find it to be, not a world-class university in Africa, but an increasingly irrelevant legacy of that continent's colonisers'failed experiment with racial engineering.

As the SACP we believe by removing race as an indicator in the admission policy it's a clear perpetuation of imbalances of the past ensuring black people do not participate to the mainstream economy. Thus we call on the Department of Higher Education and Training to speedily introduce the Central Application System in order to reduce the barriers of access to institutions of higher learning. We also call on the Department of Higher Education to ensure that universities, as institutions funded by public money should report annually to Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training.

As the SACP we will join the students of UCT led by the Progressive Youth Alliance - SASCO, YCL and ANCYL - on their March and rally which will take place on Friday 18 October 2013, starting from Liesbeek gardens Students Residence in Mowbray at 9am. We call on the people of the Western Cape to support this demonstration which aims to prevent this attempt to replace redress of past historic disadvantage based on racial exclusion with a regressive policy designed to defend the privileged few.

Statement issued by Khaya Magaxa, SACP Western Cape Provincial Secretary, October 16 2013

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