The backlash against ideological attacks on higher education by the Bullingdon club and their Lib Dem whipping boys continued today with a spontaneous occupation of the finance director’s office at the University of Manchester.
Almost eighty students began the peaceful sit-in protest this afternoon with demands to open the books to see how and where funding cuts will fall in a university where the vice Chancellor is paid more than ten times the average UK salary.
One of those who took part in the occupation told me: “The university was typically obtuse and time wasting. Nobody had agreed to set a time to talk about how these cuts would come about. It’s bloody typical stonewalling.”
The occupation follows a similar action at Deptford Town Hall by students from Goldsmiths as well as a sit-in earlier this year by Middlesex students seeking to protect the philosophy department.
Inspired by the scenes in London yesterday as well as the strikes and demonstrations in France, it seems people across the country are starting to respond to the coalition government’s war on the poor and unprivileged.
The Manchester occupation ended earlier this evening with activists pledging that it’s only the beginning. I spoke to one of those involved, who prefers only to be known as Tom. Although no longer a student Tom has been campaigning on student issues for years and suggests today’s action will be the first of many:
“This was spontaneous. The majority of students, out of about 80 people, about ten were ‘activists’. Most were just normal students who’d seen what happened yesterday.
“They only got an email at seven in the morning asking to get together, then we spent twenty minutes meeting and suggested we occupy the finance office and ask what the fuck is going on.
“And they did it! These people just done something. We left on the note that this is not the end, it’s just the beginning. We’re gonna come back and we’ll have more to say. There’s a mass movement rising, a spontaneous thing.”
While many were quick to condemn the independent actions of those invading the Tory offices yesterday, no doubt because of the spinning of the few ugly scenes, this sort of response is what is needed to fight the cuts.
“Even those who disliked the scenes yesterday, in a few months they’re going to be affected by the cuts and they’re going to think: ‘Actually that was a pretty proportional response back then’.”
According to Tom, the anger is raging inside people who are looking back on previous failed campaigns and taking heart from the actions of others on the continent, such as strikers in France.
“The people who are going to pay are not just students but workers and lecturers in the universities. These policies affect every one. Every working person, every vulnerable person in this country, every person without an income. It’s just an attack on the poor by the rich, it’s so blatant, it’s so obvious, people are just fucking angry and rightly so.
“And they look to the French, like that Paul O’Grady thing, ‘they throw a wobbly if their coffee’s cold’. People are looking to them and they look back previous campaigns against the cuts: a load of careerists fannying about, not representing the students, a crap march and it meant nothing. No one talked about it, no one gave a stuff.”
It is becoming apparent that there is a real desire to take serious action. As I pointed out yesterday, by condemning groups who act independently of the NUS they claim these issues for themselves. It’s not just today’s students that are being affected but people of all occupations and positions, even those who are yet to be born.
Instead we should all be embracing as many different (non-violent) approaches as possible to mount an effective resistance to a policy which is inextricably linked with the wider deficit reduction ideology.
According to Tom, meetings in Manchester are already being planned and he feels things stirring across the country:
“I think today was just a beacon, just a good opportunity to say there’ll be more, it’s going to be vocal, there’s going to be different approaches and the students are going to be an important part of a wider thing, it’s not just a student thing.
“As we said yesterday, this is just the beginning.”
It’s pretty pointless to occupy the Finance Director’s office, it’s not within their control to stop the cuts. Vice Chancellors have to have high salaries because the job has a high level of responsibility and requires a person with a lot of very specific management experience. These people won’t work for low pay; to assume otherwise is idealistic and unrealistic. Cutting the salaries of senior management is only going to lead to less qualified management teams whose lack of expertise will eventually bring the university into an even worse financial position.
As for the cuts victimising the poor, what is the alternative? Raise taxes to pay for higher education spending? Wouldn’t that affect the poor/working classes just as much, albeit over a longer period?
I’m not agreeing with the current proposals, so much as wondering what a viable alternative is. I’ve not yet heard anyone come up with a funding solution that will raise the necessary money for higher education to be “free” for students.
Helen, if you really believe cuts are necessary (check out http://thecutswontwork.co.uk or http://Idontgetpolitics.co.uk for an alternative viewpoint on that) the alternative to cuts hitting the poor, is cutting tax breaks and loopholes for the very rich; you raise an awful lot more money, for a lot less pain, by raising most taxes (not VAT), because they work as a proportion of income. Taking 5% from someone who is poor, is a lot better then taking all of their income (disability benefits cuts for example).
To answer your question for an alternative to education cuts: firstly, to talk about them in terms of saving money by /disinvesting/ in education is ridiculous. You don’t work your way out of recession by disinvesting in your future tax payers, or your national inventive potential.
Secondly, if no teaching cuts and a graduate tax isn’t enough of an alternative for you (as per the NUS line) let’s try something a bit more radical:
Most agree the problem with funding higher education is that by raising the bar in attendance (albeit for reasonable aims – beforehand the /wrong/ 10% were going) to 50% or so, there are just too many people to fund all of them, as well as a surplus of people educated to degree level, leading to the farcical situation where you need a degree for an entry level admin job.
What we need is a revision of the education system inline with the needs of the country. What is the biggest problem? NEETs according to the press. That’s why EMA and FE needs much /more/ funding.
If you believe uni should be for the most able (one hopes a reasonable assumption), then money should be taken out of the equation all together. Grant funded university places for the top 20-25% from /every/ school (this neatly avoids problems with ability vs. attainment that comes with private and rural vs inner city schools).
/Training/ courses formed as modern apprenticeships should be introduced to be worth the same as degrees for things like engineering, management, tech, the kind of course which now emphasise a year-in-industry as the most useful thing in actually getting a job.
And a FE system that supports those with the least to gain the most – cheffing, plumbing, mechanics, green tech that kind of thing.
This would bring us to an introduction of a PD, TD, AD (practical degree, technical degree and academy degree) all worth the same, but realistically reflecting the different aspects of the contemporary jobs market, and academic intentions.
The government subsidises ADs, Businesses subsidise TDs, and a mix gives money to PDs.
Selecting from ability, rather than attainment or ability to pay would hopefully see that this doesn’t become about class or proximity to wealth, but rather about what you are able and want to do.
Drastic, but you asked for an alternative.
P.S. getting the top 25% from /every/ school would also mean rich parents fighting to get their kids into failing schools. I’d love to see what that would do for schools and cities over 10 years. Just imagine it.
Hannah, I never said I believed the cuts were necessary, however I believe that there is not enough money to sustain the current system and rather than people shouting about what is wrong with the system, it’s much more constructive to suggest alternatives.
I disagree with this:
“To answer your question for an alternative to education cuts: firstly, to talk about them in terms of saving money by /disinvesting/ in education is ridiculous. You don’t work your way out of recession by disinvesting in your future tax payers, or your national inventive potential.”
I believe that investment in education is only key up to a certain critical point, which falls before Higher Education. I don’t think that most graduates end up paying significantly more tax, or doing significantly more ‘good’ for the country than non-graduates who received a good secondary/further education but decided not to go on to university.
I really like the idea of the radical revision of the education system, except for “Grant funded university places for the top 20-25% from /every/ school” because I think that we need to step away from the idea that intelligent people need to have a degree qualification in order to achieve their full potential. Higher education is not everything. Maybe some of those 25% shouldn’t be pressurised into it, and should be able to choose some other path instead.
Thanks though, for actually replying to my questions!
Hi Helen, thanks for the response.
The thing is that ‘believe’ doesn’t come into it, fact is graduates earn 25% more on average http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6335189.stm
So they will pay a substantial amount more in tax.
That’s not to say (within the confines of your follow up comment) that ‘good’ equates with ‘worth more’, but the effective privatisation of our HE system will mean a certain drop in quality and quantity of research; the removal of teaching funding will increase pressures on academics, they will be more expensive to ‘keep’, and the pressure will be to produce research that ‘pays’ rather than for its own sake. (take the laser as a piece of research that started out for its own sake, 20 years before it was first used in anything marketable, and 40 years before they run an awful lot of tech in our lives).
I speak here, from the POV of an academic in a top-10 institution.
And of course the top 20-25% would be of those who *wanted* to go onto an AD – there would be no forcing! Making all types of study/training of equal worth would mean someone with straight As who might want to be an applied artist would go and get a TD, one who wanted to study art history an AD or someone who wanted to be an interior designer a PD. Or those who wanted to opt out would be able to do that too.
“The thing is that ‘believe’ doesn’t come into it, fact is graduates earn 25% more on average” – on *average* being they key point, because the numbers are distorted by the fact that top lawyers earn 250000%* more whereas someone with a degree in Sociology or English in general will earn a much smaller percentage more, if any.
I speak from the POV of the daughter of 2 academic parents currently lecturing at a top-10 institution and as someone who used to work in a University myself -I think we share some of the same frustrations! However, my main frustration (and original reason for commenting), is that I often feel students are targeting the wrong people with their dissatisfaction, and spending more time on making noise than thinking of reasonable alternatives.
I do agree that making all training of equal worth would be the way forward, in an ideal world.
*not accurate
Thank you for the comments! I broadly agree with you both on the need to change the way the entire education and jobs ‘sectors’, for want of a better word, works.
To return to Helen’s original point though, I understand your frustrations at there seemingly being a lack of constructive dialogue towards positing alternatives. However, I feel like we don’t yet have the room and space to seriously engage in discussion of alternatives. It’s sad that top-up fees were introduced to begin with but now we’re on the verge of a paradigm shift in the provision of higher education. Resistance is needed now. Now is the time for doing, not just thinking.
That’s not to say we should not think either though. I feel the lack of debate on alternatives is inextricably linked with the disenfranchisement of many who will be affected by the changes. By fighting these proposals, making friends on the front line, building a movement etc., we can begin to make that space for ourselves, force our thoughts and fears into the media and into the corridors of power and try to forge our future in the eyes of the people, not the markets and the self-interested politicians.
mmm,
sounds like a load of middle class twats having a bit of fun to me
I don’t mean the government by the way…