By Joe Rukin
The NUS national executive committee will meet in emergency session during NUS national convention at Warwick University next week, to decide whether to hold a weekly picket of Downing Street. This follows a spontaneous demo organised by the Campaign for Free Education after student funding failed to make the comprehensive spending review.
Despite the pre-statement spin from Tony Blair that education would come top of the review which sets government spending for the next three years, further education has been largely ignored, and higher education completely ignored, apart from an increase in research funding which makes up for some of the cuts earlier this year. Schools will be the big winners, but not in overall funding. Increases will go to special projects and government defined shortfall areas, while the door has been opened further for the private sector entering education.
As expected, the chancellor decided to extend the pilot of Educational Maintenance Allowances to a national scheme. However as expected these means tested £5-£40/week allowances will replace child benefit (which is paid at a flat rate) for all 16-19 year olds, saving the Chancellor £330m. As for Higher Education, nothing. This prompted the Campaign for Free Education into a lobby outside the Chancellors house. NUS NEC members will decide whether or not to make this a weekly event at an emergency NUS NEC meeting on Tuesday 23rd at 11pm in Coventry.
Faz Velmi, a CFE member of the NUS NEC said;
"NUS cannot afford to sit around waiting for the government to decide what they are going to do, no decision has been made so the opportunity for students to set the agenda is still there. CFE organised this picket, whilst NUS as a whole are standing still and students cannot afford the union to be unprpepared for battle again. We're fed up with the same old failures on the campaigning front. NUS policy is to have a national demo in the November, but as usual a date isn't even set yet, and unions need to know when it will be so they can plan and include other information in their freshers publications. Normally posters and leaflets get sent out a week or so before an event, that just isn't good enough. We organised the picket of Downing Street because we can't wait until November, as the new proposals will be out a month earlier- it'll be too late to influence them by then. Other unions are starting to show their teeth because they know it's the only way they can get this Government to listen. NUS need to get student funding back into the political and public concious. Without that, fighting for students will be an uphill battle."
CFE sent produced this letter to accompany their lobby;
Dear Chancellor,
Last week, as you are aware, the House of Commons Education & Skills Select
Committee made a number of recommendations for sweeping changes to higher
education funding in this country. The Committee rejected the view, widespread
among UK citizens, uncontroversial in the trade union movement and almost
universal among students, that the introduction of tuition fees and the
abolition of student grants have erected an insuperable barrier to seriously
expanding access to university. In fact, it recommended that the Government
proceed further in the same direction by increasing tuition fees and introducing
higher rates of interest on student loans.
The Select Committee believes that the funds thus raised could be used to
increase higher education funding and expand access. Even if this use of the
money were not so very unlikely - since we know from the Higher Education
Funding Council that the introduction of fees in 1998 was used to maintain and
not increase spending on higher education - such measures would be undesirable
in the extreme. Applications have stagnated and drop-out rates soared since the
introduction of tuition fees and the abolition of grants; and increase in fees
and student debt would only exacerbate this trend. Survey after survey has
shown that fear of debt is THE major factor preventing applications to
university, and that working-class students are most likely to be deterred by
this fear. You have already recognised this fact by introducing Education
Maintenance Allowances for some further education students, but EMAs are too
little for too few.
Nor is it acceptable to suggest, as the Select Committee does, that these
attacks can be compensated for by the introduction of more part-time course
accessible to those on low incomes. A two- or multi-tier education system,
where a few can study freely while the majority receive vocational training plus
a few poorly funded baubles, will mean educational apartheid between rich and
poor.
Chancellor, we believe that if you were serious about expanding access, about
the importance of education and about equal opportunities for all, you would:
- Scrap, not increase, all tuition fees in HE and FE
- Guarantee every student in the UK a living maintenance grant
- Fund education properly through progressive taxation of those who can
afford it - the rich and big business
Without these measures, the Government's target of 50% of young people entering
higher education will remain what it is currently - a sick joke. The
Government's claim that the money to fund these things simply doesn't exist is
demonstrably nonsense. A few facts (your officials could no doubt produce a
more comprehensive and exact list):
- Between 1990 and 2001, the richest 10% of UK citizens
increased their share of the national income from 21% to 27%
-Restoring the top-rate of income tax to what it was when Margaret Thatcher
left office would raise something like £10 billion
- Scrapping Britain's so-called nuclear deterrent would raise more than £3
billion; cutting defence spending to the
European average more than £4 billion
- Restoring corporation tax to what it was when you took office
would raise around £7 billion
- Restoring corporation tax to what it was in 1979 would raise more than £30
billion
The money is there - it is a matter of political will! We are not arguing that
students should gain and others who rely on public services lose out. We are
deeply concerned about and opposed to the cuts and privatisations you are
introducing in many areas of public services, and believe you should find the
money to rebuild the welfare state as a whole. We repeat, the money is there to
fund public services, including education, properly - and we demand that the
Government make use of it.
