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Director of Ceremonies
Comrade Secretary General the ANC
Comrade President of SASCO
Comrades from the Alliance
Comrades
Ladies and Gentlemen

Today is WORLD AIDS Day, and I hope we all understand the significance thereof. An awareness of the importance of this day is particularly necessary in our country, for statistics indicate that we are one of the fastest growing HIV environments in the world. It is particularly vital that this gathering be sensitised about and be sensitive to the reach of this epidemic, because it is hitting us where it hurts most - on our youth.

I am not going to say mush about the deadly virus that leads to AIDS. You know about it. I do want to say, though, that the tragedy of our country does not lie in ignorance about HIV and AIDS. The tragedy is rather in the fact that while we know about these, most of us see them as things that can happen to everybody else but us. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the real crisis we are faced with as a country. Think about it and let your country know what you as the youth, the future, are going to do about it. Thank you.

I greet you in the name of education and the challenges it has thrown our way. I salute you and congratulate you on the road you have travelled to reach this congress, surely another milestone in your journey towards the transformation of education in the country.

It is a journey, as you know, fraught with obstacles, both from your own comrades and from reactionary forces hell-bent on frustrating the country's march towards complete change. I make, I must say, a distinction I consider unnecessary, for in my book an undisciplined comrade is as reactionary as the most reactionary of reactionaries.

I refer, comrades, to those among us who seem to see student politics as a sanctuary from academic demands - those who unashamedly defend academic non-performance. Consider the case of an institution where up to three thousand students excluded on the basis of multiple academic failures embark on disruptive behaviour and demand to be reinstated. We are determined to end the culture of perpetual stays on campuses. This is parasitism on taxpayers' hard-earned moneys, and we shall support any administration that work to eradicate it.

I refer also to those who have turned student activism into full-time jobs of extortion from weak and susceptible administrations. These, together with those administrations without the backbone to insist on principled and progressive student-management partnerships, may be yesterday's heroes, but they are today's reactionaries.

The subject of student indiscipline and corruption is one we have, for far too long, been too coy about. I wish to submit that it needs to be centred in our ongoing debate about transformation. What I am saying is that let us set, for ourselves, the very standards we set for the places we want to transform. By so doing we shall have immeasurably empowered ourselves to speak with more than brute political force. We shall have armed ourselves with that most effective of weapons - moral authority.

Can we do it? That is for you to answer. Do we have the courage to look our own comrades in the face and say to them "You are a disgrace to our noble cause. Change, or quit."

Frankly, I do not see us making any impression on the forces we are ranged against without a strong and disciplined cadre. Discipline and devotion to progressive principles brought us as far as we are. I submit that we have lost some of our fire in that area.

We need that fire as we confront the one challenge I consider paramount for the true transformation of our institutions of higher learning - academic transformation. Be under no illusion, true transformation will really start the day we transform the very core of our institution - the academic programmes. These are, ultimately, the determinants of the intellectual quality of an institution and its inhabitants. The very quality of general transformation, I wish to argue, hinges on the extent and the quality of academic transformation. I wish to posit that we should aspire towards excellence. For far too long we have, through our defence of non-performance and disruptions, tacitly endorsed mediocrity. Think about this.

Let me be presumptuous and say that you might want to, as you explore various scenarios of academic transformation, consider the possibility of community service as a contribution to the transformation of our society. You might want to engage our institutions on the viability of building this element into transformed academic requirements so that we may develop a culture of commitment to our communities. Consider, for a moment, the significant role played by our students in the registration process that started this past weekend.

There can be no more excuses. We have provided you with a framework for transformation. Use it. We have created legislated for institutional forums. Establish them. We have prescribed transformation. Do it.

I know that one of your key concerns remains the ongoing financial exclusions occasioned by the high student debts. May I pronounce myself unambiguously on this by saying that it remains the government's policy that recipients of higher education should pay for it. Those who are unable to pay but are academically competent should be assisted via loans or bursaries. Pursuant to this, we have, over the past few years, pumped R850 million into the National Student Financial Aid Scheme. This is government's contribution. When other donations are included, the total amount so far is R1.2 billion. We stay committed to doing everything we can to increase this figure as per the needs of our student population.

Twinned with the legislation that creates structures in which our students are to be represented, our financial assistance programme removes the rationale that has traditionally been used to justify instability on our campuses. I do, therefore, wish to categorically state our zero tolerance for whatever disruptions might be contemplated to drive transformation and other agendas during the 1999 academic year. We shall not support any action that effectively countermands our revolutionary gains by deviating from progressive principles. We shall oppose, and with vigour, corrupt behaviour dressed in the robes of revolution.

On that note, Comrade Chairperson, I would end my address if I was not talking like this out of genuine concern about educational transformation. I think it is incumbent upon me to instead end by saluting those of our student leadership, such as many among us here today, who have steadfastly flown the flag of principled and clean student governance. I applaud those who have advanced the noble cause of educational transformation without abusing the power that leadership positions invest their holders with.

To those principled comrades and their like in this gathering I say, in the old-time words of true revolutionaries, the struggle continues. May this congress be another blow in favour of that struggle.

Thank you.

<EOD>