Moseneke: state must forge plan on higher education

Retired deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke has thrown his weight behind calls for greater access to higher education, saying that the state is constitutionally obligated to provide it.

Moseneke - who served 15 years in the Constitutional Court and was one of the drafters of the interim constitution that facilitated South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy - said if the state was unable to immediately do so, it would have to demonstrate that it had a plan to progressively realise this goal.

He cited section 29 of the constitution in stating everyone has the right "... to further education, which the state, through reasonable measures, must make progressively available and accessible".

Moseneke's comments come as students have shut down tertiary institutions around the country in their demand for free university education for all.

As chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand, Moseneke has been actively engaged in attempts to find a solution. He revealed he was writing a paper he would make public soon in which he argues that access to higher education is a constitutional obligation.

"The qualification really is as simple as this: if you don't have it now, over time that access must be progressively realised subject to available resources.

"The state would have to demonstrate that, in fact, they have a plan to progressively realise it ... and they are allocating resources in order to reach their goal ...

"The constitution requires of you to structure a plan, that would over time facilitate increased access. If there is a rise in costs, the planning should build in all of that.

"Your duty is to increase access to education. Then you have to structure a plan," Moseneke said.

The former Robben Island prisoner, whose memoir, My Own Liberator, has just been published, believes making education accessible is a "sensible" thing to do given the potential it has to reduce inequality and lift people from poverty.

"It is utterly sensible, isn't it? Because the more educated, crafted or skilled the people are, the better liberators they will become of themselves ...

"So the question must pop up: when the fees rise all the time ... when the constitution promises progressive access to education, what is happening there?"

My Own Liberator is Moseneke's account of his upbringing; his 10-year imprisonment on Robben Island since he was 16 years old and his illustrious career as lawyer, anti-apartheid activist, businessman and one of the country's top jurists.

He is writing a second book which will focus on the 15 years he spent at the Constitutional Court.

He started writing his autobiography four years ago, on most evenings splitting his time between crafting court judgments and putting his memories to paper.

"If you go to the book, you will see that it really tries to be an anecdote about one's life and the many South Africans I criss-crossed with and the many social and political contexts that one had to deal with, particularly when we all were still slaves and fighting our oppression, colonial and racial," Moseneke said.

It was important for him that "I write the book myself" as this was "something that I learnt to do in the 40 years that I was a lawyer".

"But the challenge here was that I was writing something quite different to law. This is storytelling.

"The difference is that these are lived experiences ... the book incorporates and makes references to many, many South Africans of all sorts of persuasions and contributions in the struggle."

Unsurprisingly, given his own activism from a very young age, Moseneke is passionate about youth development. In the dedication for the book he writes: "I choose to stake my trust in the future. I consecrate this work to the youth of our land, of Africa and the world, where radical change is necessary.

"This is because, ordinarily, young people are deeply intolerant of social inequity ... Each young person is her or his own liberator in the personal space but so, too, together with others, in the public and social enterprise."

Moseneke writes that the call by leaders such as PAC founder Robert Sobukwe and ANC Youth League leader Anton Lembede for "freedom in our lifetime" was what moved him to engage in politics at the age of 15.

His hope, however, is that the book will teach the youth that personal development is as important as fighting in a common struggle for social justice.

"I really call on African youth and say, 'Guys, there is a corridor of personal agency, the things we have to do as individuals.' It is really an invitation to young people to say there is space for personal agency, not to be confused with collective agency ... I don't think we sufficiently - and that is part of our problem in the country currently - emphasise the place of individual agency."

His mission is "to say to young people: there is this talk of the struggle, all of us together ... making some demand together and that is healthy, that is legitimate. But also you can't escape personal agency through that ... Even if all fees are paid for us fully, you still have to work. You still have to graft."

This is an important message, he said, especially on a continent still faced with many developmental challenges that require entrepreneurs, engineers, architects and other highly skilled professionals.

"We haven't drummed that in hard enough; that the collective is made out of individuals and that we have to create good individuals for good collectives. Through my own personal experience, I am where I am - the book will tell you - through dog and slog and faith and trust and belief that hope should spring eternal ...

"What I am saying ... we have to reconfigure how we talk to young people and how we talk to ourselves. The narrative for me after 1994 was 'Vote for me and I will give you' ... I think the narrative should be, 'We are our own liberators.'

"I am the last person to suggest that our young people don't have a cause currently. They do have a cause."