Johannesburg – The Congress of South African Students (Cosas) has raised concerns about school transport and the number of learners who lose their lives in road related accidents and mistreatment in transport vehicles.

“We emphasise the need for monitoring and servicing of school transport to ensure it is roadworthy,” it said.

Cosas assembled for its first two-day National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting from March 17 to 19 at Morula Sun Hotel in Pretoria.

The NEC meeting reflected and reviewed the ideological posture and approach to the school struggles and identified ancient challenges around the classroom struggle.

It reaffirmed its commitment to work towards influencing and amending policies, attaining free, quality, accessible and decolonised education in their lifetime.

Following the learner deaths on the road, the organisation called for qualified drivers and said that the “one matric certificate, one driving licence” programme should be implemented.

“We also note with disgust the deficiency of school transport, especially in rural provinces where learners have to walk more than 10km to and from school. A huge contributing factor to the dropout statistics,” it said.

During the meeting, the NEC commended the excellent and hard work by activists, leaders and members of Cosas throughout the country during the Back2school campaign.

It further congratulated the class of 2022 for its excellent academic work and encouraged those who did not meet the minimum requirements to ascend into institutions of higher learning to look out for opportunities that were available to them through various government stakeholders like the NYDA and the presidential youth employment initiative.

The meeting strengthened the call for ICT implementation in schools through the use of smart boards and tablets. It also commended the Gauteng Education Department (GDE) for its schools of specialisation and emphasized that it must be a national program.

“These progressive schools must also exist in the most rural of provinces,” it added.

The NEC disbanded the leadership in Mpumalanga, Free State, Gauteng and Northern Cape due to the organisation being unstable and administratively incapacitated. The appointment of new leadership was under way.

Meanwhile, Cosas further urged the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) to stop posing division in the organisation.

“We therefore remind the union of the resolutions of the 2008 Sadtu NGC that emphasised the need to develop joint programmes to capacitate Cosas.

“It is for the student-worker relationship, affiliation reason that we advise Sadtu to shy away from deepening internal divisions in Cosas,” it said.

kamogelo.moichela@inl.co.za

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