MY VOTE COUNTS CELEBRATES THE SUCCESS OF EQUAL EDUCATION’S 5TH NATIONAL CONGRESS

My Vote Counts wishes to congratulate the youth-led mass democratic movement, Equal Education (EE) on a successful National Congress and election of its National Council which will lead the movement for the next three years.

Equal Education is a crucial membership-based movement. It is comprised of more than 6,000 members, of whom the vast majority are active school going children under the age of 18. Members meet regularly, mostly in township and rural school halls, and discuss issues that affect them, their schoolmates and their communities. They share information and political education on matters such as the state of their classrooms; the failures of capitalism; and solidarity with oppressed people around the world, including the people of Palestine.

Every three years members elect delegates to the National Council (NC) to represent their views on these types of issues. The NC is the highest decision-making body in EE between congresses and is made up of school learners, parents and post-school youth.

The movement has embodied participatory democracy over its 17 years of existence.

It championed the ideal that all peaceful protest must be decriminalised in a democracy. Even, and especially, for the youth. They argued that because children can’t vote, their right to protest is “integral to their involvement in the political process.” On 19 November 2018, the Constitutional Court agreed with EE.

In the same year, through mass mobilisation, public participation and litigation, members forced the aggressively defiant Minister of Education to sign the Minimum Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure, which set deadlines for fixing unsafe schools.

Three months after President Ramaphosa locked down the country to curb the spread of Covid, he reopened our schools. But many EE members and other school children were going hungry because the government had stopped the National Nutrition Programme which was created to ensure that over 9-million learners have access to basic nutrition. EE launched a nationwide campaign demanding that the Programme be reopened. In July 2021, EE won, when the High Court forced the government to continue providing essential food to millions of school learners.

Through community-based research, protest and legal action, EE members ensured learners in rural Nquthu (KZN) who had had to cross rivers to get to school were provided safe scholar transport; that learners at Lutholi Junior Secondary (EC) were built proper safe and sanitary toilets. Through its work, EE has enabled thousands of young people to reimagine and actively work towards building a better society.

MVC looks forward to working alongside comrades Itumeleng Mothlabane, Nontsikelelo Dlulani, Mbekezeli Benjamin, Nomhlekhabo Masondo, Masechaba Ntsane and the rest of the National Council elected at the 2025 National Congress.

Democracy works only because of movements like Equal Education. Equal Education works because it values and practices Democracy.

Qina mfundi, qina!