ERC Marks 40th Anniversary of June 16 Soweto Uprising with Public Meetings and Leafletting

By H.T. Soweto

40 years ago, on the morning of 16 June 1976, thousands of high school students from the black township of Soweto began a protest against the Bantu education system and the decision of the South African Apartheid government to impose Afrikaans as a language of instruction in public schools. In response, the racist Apartheid police opened fire on them, killing hundreds of young black school children. The first casualty, Hector Pieterson, was no more than 13 years old.

This singular action of the Apartheid government detonated a powerful movement of students and workers that eventually led to the dismantling of the racist and oppressive Apartheid system (a system for the perpetuation of white supremacist minority rule) in South Africa.

To commemorate the history of this struggle and draw useful lessons, three branches of the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) organized series of events and activities on Thursday 16 June 2016 at the Lagos State University (LASU), among public secondary school students in Ajegunle (a poor community in Lagos state) and at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) where non-academic workers have been taking actions against the corruption of the immediate-past Vice Chancellor of the University and his desperate moves to usurp democratic process in the selection of the next Vice Chancellor in order to cover his tracks.

The ERC also used the occasion to launch a new campaign against anti-poor education policies by producing and posting posters calling for a one-day nationwide students’ boycott.

For the complete version of this article, visit www.educationrightscampaign.blogspot.com