The ANC will raise your child for you: Ramaphosa speaks about his party’s successes

ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa says that because of the ANC’s policies, all new babies belong to the government.

He was speaking in Daveyton, east of Johannesburg, on Tuesday.

Ramaphosa said the ANC has made it possible for parents of new babies to receive child grants to help with the needs of newborns.

He said South Africa is the only country in the world that dispenses this grant immediately after a child is born.

“This grant that we give to the children is very important because when we came into power as the ANC government, we found that our children do not get a cent from the government.

“Even their education was not supported by the government; it is the ANC government that said any child who is born (in South Africa) will become the child of the government,” he said.

Ramaphosa said the government is responsible for assisting children’s parents.

“We want to assist our people fully so that these children are supported by the government. We should not bring back the past where parents did not get assistance from the government,” he said.

He said the ANC’s assistance to parents includes establishing Early Childhood Development Centres (ECDs).

“We want these ECDs to fall under the government so that our children are taught at an early age,” he said.

School education

Ramaphosa said the government also wants young people to start learning AI early to boost their skills and knowledge.

“Before a child reaches Grade R, we want that child to be able to study arithmetic,” he said.

Ramaphosa said the ANC also went further by introducing no-fee schools that go all the way up to matric to ease the burden of funding education for struggling parents.

“Many of our children go to model-C schools – we want most schools to be no-fee schools… we want our children to be taught in no-fee schools, they must be taught properly, and government should be the one that takes responsibility,” he said.

Higher education

He said the ANC government has also ensured that, even after high school, children are supported through government funding.

“We give them bursaries. This year we gave one million of our learners a bursary that we call Nsfas. No government in the world does all of that work of supporting a baby from day one to grade 12 and beyond,” he said.

Ramaphosa said the quality of education that the ANC is giving is better than the quality of education under apartheid.

“They wanted to give black people an education that could only allow them to fetch water at the river.”