The South African Students Congress (SASCO) is a South African student organisation currently led by Bamanye Matiwane as the organization's President. SASCO was founded in September 1991 at
Rhodes University in
Grahamstown,
Eastern Cape
The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are East London and Gqeberha.
The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km2) after Northern Cape, it was formed in ...
, through the merger of the South African National Student Congress (SANSCO) and the
National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). The predecessor of SANSCO, the
Azanian Students Organisation (AZASO) was initially formed in 1979 as a continuation of the
South African Students Organisation
The South African Students' Organisation (SASO) was a body of black South African university students who resisted apartheid through non-violent political action. The organisation was formed in 1969 under the leadership of Steve Biko and Barney P ...
(SASO) when the latter was banned by the
Apartheid government. SASO, in turn, got started by
Steve Biko
Bantu Stephen Biko (18 December 1946 – 12 September 1977) was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known ...
as a breakaway faction from NUSAS in the 1960s.
SASCO is the biggest student movement in Africa . It organizes students in institutions of higher learning striving for the transformation of not just institutions of higher learning but the whole system in order to achieve a non-sexist, non-racial, working class biased and democratic education system.
References
External links
SASCO's official website
{{Authority control
Student organisations in South Africa
1991 establishments in South Africa
Student organizations established in 1991