The ANC Youth League has hit out at the EFF over the latter’s calls for matrics to turn up at universities this month and demand free education.

Ahead of the ANC’s party conference in December, president Jacob Zuma announced that the government would fund free education for the poor and underprivileged going forward.

In his year-end speech, Malema encouraged recently graduated matrics to take the president at his word and register for free tuition.

“We call upon all those who passed matric extremely well in the past and found themselves as petrol attendants‚ retail or security workers because they couldn’t afford university fees to report at the academic institution of their choice next year,” Malema said.

Malema’s announcement drew criticism from a lot of quarters, with many saying that it could cause chaos at tertiary education institutions. The EFF, for its part, has waved away these concerns.

In a piece in the Huffington Post, the ANCYL, while praising the free education initiative, has slammed the EFF’s announcement as “attention seeking”.

“The ANC Youth League rejects the ill-informed demagoguery pseudo Marxist-Leninist Economic Freedom Fighters to cause chaos at the tertiary institutions,” the ANCYL post reads.

“Their call to have all who have passed matric including those who have not applied to study at the tertiary institutions to report to tertiary institutions is nothing else but attempt to derail the plans of implementing a free tertiary education without any hindrances.”

“Their attention seeking behaviour at the expense of the children of the poor and working class must be exposed, frowned upon and be rejected.”

It’s unclear right now how many matrics will respond to the EFF’s call to register this month, or whether the party’s claims that it’ll be able to assist the process will play out without incident.

[Source: Huffington Post]