The insistent cries for free education from students continue to reverberate through the corridors of power‚ Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Friday. He was speaking after being conferred with an honorary doctorate in law at the University of Venda in Limpopo. The Council and the Senate of the University of Venda agreed to confer the honorary doctorate on Ramaphosa for his role in overseeing the drafting of South Africa’s first democratic constitution. Speaking at the ceremony‚ Ramaphosa said he was “honoured and deeply humbled”. “While this honorary degree is conferred on an individual‚ it has been earned by a generation‚" he said. “It is the product of a generation that was schooled in the crucible of struggle to serve selflessly‚ without expectation of reward or recognition‚” Ramaphosa said.Ramaphosa previously served as a chancellor of the University of Venda from 1997-2009.The Deputy President said that the graduation ceremony acknowledged the present generation "that is finding its voice and discovering its purpose”.He said it was a generation that had brought down the statues of imperialists and whose angry and insistent cries for free education continued to reverberate through the corridors of power.“This is the generation that is determined to change the things it can no longer accept. History has determined that this generation must lead. It is the task of this generation to fundamentally transform our society.“It is the task of this generation to realise the vision of the Freedom Charter.“This is the generation that will open the doors of learning to all‚” he said.Ramaphosa added that this is the generation that will organise‚ agitate‚ mobilise and “relentlessly strive until free higher education for the poor has been realised”. “To do that‚ this generation must combat the complacency and lethargy that can too easily overcome our institutions.“The struggles that are being waged on our campuses today should not blind us to the educational needs of those who are now barely old enough to talk.“Unless we attend to early childhood development with as much urgency and as much vigour as we pursue access to higher education‚ we will merely perpetuate the inequality and poverty of the past‚” he said.However‚ Ramaphosa also spoke about the “senseless destruction of property” undertaken by students during the fees protests this week.“This is a generation that builds‚ that creates‚ that innovates. It does not burn libraries. It does not destroy art.“This is a generation that does not accept that the wilful and senseless destruction of property is a legitimate response to discontent and dissatisfaction‚” he said...