ANC conference supports plan for free higher education
Delegates at the national conference of the African National Congress (ANC) has come out strongly in support of free higher education.
President Jacob Zuma recently announced plans to implement free education for poor and working class students.
It is estimated that it could the country some R12 billion rand per year.
The chairperson of the ANC's commission on Education, Health and Technology, Naledi Pandor briefed the media after the commission concluded its discussion at the 54th national conference.
"We didn’t discuss operationalisation of the annoucement on free higher education because we had an assurance from (Finance) Minister Gigaba that there would be a focus on this in the budget speech in February.”
She said the new ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) need to urgently convene a summit to discuss higher education issues.
On the issue of basic education, Pandor said the conference resolved that all schools in the country will have to teach at least one indigenous langauge.
The ANC also emphasised the need to improve literacy and numeracy in basic education.