Former Gauteng premier David Makhura, who runs the ANC political school, said there was a need for the party to both educate its existing members and ensure that those who joined in future were “in good standing in the community”.
The ANC on Monday launched a compulsory foundation course for all its members, which it hopes will assist in its attempts at renewal and to rebuild the party in the wake of its electoral losses on 29 May.
The party’s national executive committee (NEC) and its provincial and regional leaders will be the first to undergo the five-module programme on the history, ethics and vision of the ANC, which was introduced at its three-day meeting at the weekend.
The course is among a number of steps approved by the NEC, including the vetting of new members, amended terms of reference for its integrity commission and fine-tuning its step-aside rule.
The ANC is busy training 300 of its members who will act as trainers, in conjunction with branch coordinators and party leaders and aims to have reached its entire membership by December 2025.
It believes political education will help it deal with the factionalism and disunity in its ranks in the wake of the breakaway by Jacob Zuma and with a lack of ethical grounding which enables corruption.
At the public launch of the course, which will be run through the OR Tambo political school, President Cyril Ramaphosa said it would help make ANC members “sharper” by deepening their understanding of the party, its history, ethics and values.
He said the ANC had concentrated on political education, but this had “weakened over time” and the work that had been done was “not enough”.
Providing members with proper training on ethics, history and policy would strengthen the organisation and “enable comrades to even rid our organisation of tendencies such as factionalism, deviant tendencies which could prevail”.
It would also allow ANC members, some of whom “do not understand the ANC and do not live up to its values and ethical standards”, to focus “more and more on the real issues that affect our organisation”.
Former Gauteng premier David Makhura, who runs the ANC political school, said there was a need for the party to both educate its existing members and ensure that those who joined in future were “in good standing in the community”.
While 60 000 members had undergone political education through the school, this would now be taken to every ANC branch in the country.
The five modules aim to provide a common understanding of the ANC’s values, discipline and vision among its members across the country and to equip them ethically and were developed with the input of the party’s veterans.
Makhura said the ANC had also agreed to change the way it recruits and would now be asking “who are you, why do you want to join the ANC” so that it would “attract the people with the best intentions”