Some need to learn rules are necessary

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AS THE announcement of the 2015 matric results begins, those of us with the interests of education at heart watch with bated breath to see how our young generation has performed.

To repeat a well-used cliché, matric is the gateway to the future.

It is also gratifying to see our starry-eyed matriculants – especially those who have distinguished themselves by getting good marks – relate their dreams about going to university and studying to attain their dreams.

Yet for me such gratitude is tinged with a great sense of sadness at what potentially awaits these young ones when one considers the realities of our tertiary scenario today.

For it is an open secret that the disruptions that we witnessed last year are not about to disappear come the new year.

Current news reports indicate that we can expect even worse scenes of disruptions and chaos in 2016. I don’t wish to be a prophet of doom, but when political youth formations begin to make noises that seek to outdo one another in the recent student campaigns, one has to worry.

University campus turf has long been fertile ground for cultivating consciousness by political formations. That is to be expected, and has by and large been accepted as normal.

Thus we see student representative councils (SRCs) being led by youth formations aligned to political parties.

For a long time this has been considered normal and life has gone on as processes were conducted within the parameters of decent behaviour indicative of the culture of the institutions where the interactions took place.

But that was before the arrival on the scene of self-proclaimed freedom fighters who have drastically lowered the bar in the arena of debate, in the name of militancy.

To this bunch, militancy means breaking all enlightened rules of engagement and lowering them to the level of actual physical combat, insults and personal attacks.

The rule here is that there are no rules. This attitude has had great appeal, resonance and pulling power with disgruntled students who have for a long time endured institutional leadership that has turned a deaf ear to their legitimate grievances.

As student political formations prepare to square up and contest leadership positions in the coming academic year, expect to see posturing right from the word go.

This, considering the tone in which 2015 ended, bodes ill for a smooth introduction to the 2016 academic year.

This is not even taking into consideration the natural spoilers, those who have no ambition for the future but are at tertiary institutions as a way of life – those commonly referred to as “career students”.

Yes, they exist, students who, for three to four or five years, repeat course one and continue to reside at universities as a way of life.

Fertile ground

We need to be frank here: things are threatening to fall apart. These students, who see no future for themselves, provide fertile ground for political masters with dubious motivation to manipulate for their own ends, and therein lies a further, quite sinister danger.

At the risk of being dubbed presumptuous, I’d like student leadership, especially those whose intention is to continue with protests this year, to consider a few things.

As some have declared their actions as “war”, there are some points to consider.

A war, by its nature, consists of well-defined enemies. There are clear issues of dispute involved.

The outbreak of war is triggered by a stalemate in talks or negotiations. War is declared. If there is a willingness to end the war, negotiations again take place and a ceasefire is declared and terms are drawn out and adhered to – that is, if the parties really want an end to the war.

I submit that these rules should apply to any war that might arise in the learning and teaching arena – that is, if there is a will to continue with the educational enterprise in this country.

Otherwise the matric class of 2015 is doomed and faces a gloomy future, as do those who come after them.

Masemola is director: speech writing, in the Higher Education Ministry. He writes in his personal capacity.