South African Youth And Students History

The Congress of South African
Students (COSAS) was established
in June 1979 as a national
organization to represent the
interests of Black school students
in the wake of the Soweto
uprisings. During its formation the
South African Student Movement
(SASM) and other organizations of
the Black Consciousness (BC)
movement were banned by the
apartheid government. COSAS
organized students at secondary
and night schools, as well as
technical, teacher training and
correspondence colleges. Soon
after their formation, the
organisation set up branches in
the Eastern Cape, Western Cape,
Transvaal, Orange Free State and
Natal. Branches in the various
provinces were set up with the aid
of executive members specifically
deployed into the various regions
for that purpose. Other student
organizations also assisted COSAS
with establishing its branches in
their areas.
Initially a BC orientated
organization, a year after its
formation COSAS became the first
organization to declare its support
of the Freedom Charter. Its first
president, Ephrahim Mogale was
actually a clandestine member of
the African national Congress
(ANC) and was later to be
convicted of furthering the aims of
the ANC. At the time of its
formation the ANC was banned
along other liberation movements
under the Unlawful Organisations
Act. A guiding principle for COSAS
was the view that the ANC was the
authentic liberation movement of
South Africa. In its first two years
COSAS took up two
commemorative campaigns that
authorities saw as ANC-
supporting; the 1979 hanging of
uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) guerrilla
Solomon Mahlangu and the
centenary of the Zulu victory over
British troops at Isandhlwana.
The organization’s principle aims
were the conscientising of students
and the wider community to the
repressive nature of education in
South Africa, and to participate in
the drawing up of an educational
charter for a future, non-racial
democratic education system. Its
view was that a democratic
education system could only be
achieved in a democratic society
based on the will of all the people.
It recognized that Bantu Education
was aimed at controlling and
indoctrinating youth and that this
could only be changed by
transforming the country’s entire
political system. Although it was
primarily education focused,
COSAS identified the relationship
between educational and social
transformation in its statement of
beliefs:
•Students must be organized
through democratically elected
SRCs ·
•Students must serve the
community, we are members of
society before we are students and
thereby show that students can
play a progressive role in the
broad democratic alliance
•In serving the community, there
must be a recognition that
students play only a limited role in
the overall struggle
•The duty of the students was to
lend support to trade unions and
community organizations.
In 1982, COSAS adopted the
theme; “Student-worker action”
and promoted the formation of
youth congresses to serve the
interests of young workers and
unemployed youth. These
facilitated cooperation between
school students, young workers
and the unemployed youth. This
had the dual effect of drawing
COSAS into issues which affected
young workers and the unemployed
youth, and drawing the congresses
into school-related struggles. The
organization provided essential
support to striking workers and
community struggles around
issues such as transport increases,
rent hikes and the like.
United Democratic Front logo.
Source: South African History
Online
In 1983, the COSAS welcomed the
formation of the United Democratic
Front (UDF) and played a key role
in the formation of the regional
UDF structures in all of the
provinces. It saw the UDF as
representing a common platform to
fight for a free and democratic
South Africa.
In its early years, COSAS, focused
on educational issues but with its
alliance to the UDF, by the end of
1984, its students were making
demands around educational as
well as political issues.
Throughout the 1980s, under the
banner of COSAS students have
staged a variety of resistance
tactics like boycotts, strikes,
negotiated and laid down
demands. In Cradock, Eastern
Cape students from seven schools
boycotted the transfer of Mathew
Goniwe, a teacher and anti-
apartheid activist. Goniwe was
being transferred by the
Department of Education and
training (DET) to be a principal at
a school in Graaf-Reinet.
Mourners at the funeral of the
“Cradock Four” 1985. Source:
www.saha.org.za [Accessed: 29
February 2012]
According to Bahman 2003, the
decision to transfer Goniwe was
part of a plan to remove him from
his community as he was seen as
a strong opponent and champion
of the residents. Two years (1985)
later Goniwe was assassinated
together with Fort Calata, Sparrow
Mkonto and Sicelo Mhlauli on
what became known as ‘Cradock
Four’. On 14 February 1984, a 15
year old student, Emma Sathekge
was killed and scores were injured
when police clashed with pupils
boycotting classes as they were
demanding, among other things
the removal of the age-limit law
and the right to form Student
Representative Council’s (SRC).
Emma Sathekge was killed in the
black township of Atteridgeville,
Pretoria. Her funeral was attended
by more than 10 000 mourners. At
the funeral, the COSAS speaker
Tlhabane Mogashoa said; “We will
prove in action that Bantu
education is evil. We will revolt
against it until it has been utterly
scrapped, dumped on the junk-bin
of history and buried once and for
all.”
At Minerva High School in
Alexandra Township boycotting
students were given a right to form
SRC. The students boycott on age-
limit law spread countrywide. The
recommendations by the age-limit
law were rejected by students as
from the inception in 1981.
Students marching to a funeral of
COSAS member in KwaMashu,
KwaZulu Natala, 1981.
Photographer: Omar Badsha
By the end of 1984, it had
succeeded in drawing community
support for the students struggle
when it successfully called on the
community to participate in the
Transvaal regional stay-away.
Demands made by the
organization included:
•The withdrawal of the SADF and
police from the townships
•Cessation of rent and bus-fare
increases
•Resignation of all community
councillors
•Unconditional release of all
political prisoners and detainees
•Reinstatement of dismissed
workers
•Educational reform
•The termination of unfair tax
discrimination
Poster: Offset litho, issued by
Congress of South African Students
(COSAS), 1985, Johannesburg
Source: Nelson Mandela
Foundation
By 1985, school boycotts had
rendered the schools unworkable
and ungovernable and mirrored the
collapse of the Black Local
Authorities in the townships. Their
slogan “Liberation now, Education
later!” saw chaos in schools
across the country and resulted in
the National Education Crisis
Committee being formed in 1986.
Eventually COSAS was banned in
mid 1985 as the state of
emergency was declared by South
African government. At the
inaugural conference of the UDF,
COSAS claimed a membership of
44 branches nationally and by the
end of 1984 it had developed a
well organized structure with
branches in nearly 50 centres
around the country, with the
majority of its membership coming
from the Eastern Cape and the
Southern Transvaal. By the time of
its banning in 1985, it was
estimated that the organization
enjoyed the support of almost 3
million students, or more than half
the country’s Black students.
However, COSAS continued to play
an active role although it was
banned. The organisation helped
to establish South African Youth
Congress (SAYCO) which was
secretly established in Cape Town
in 1987. During the resistance
campaign, launched by extra-
parliamentary groups under the
auspices of the Mass Democratic
Movement (MDM) in August 1989,
COSAS unbanned itself. On 2
February 1990, President F.W. de
Klerk announced the release of
Nelson Mandela and unban of
liberation movements. In May
1990 the organisation was
reinstated at Orlando Stadium,
Soweto. On the same occasion
Rapu Molekane, general secretary
of Sayco, said that COSAS should
support the process of negotiation
in South Africa. According to
Molekane, "people's education"
can be brought about only by the
transfer of political power to the
people. He supported the ANC's
re-quest for discipline during the
struggle. At the same time the
publicity secretary of COSAS, Mike
Dube, gave an exposition of the
organisation's re-building process.
In October 1990 two of COSAS's
management members joined the
Provisional National Youth
Committee, established to
reactivate the ANC Youth League
(ANCYL).