Students and Workers in Higher Education campaigning against Cuts, Fees and Debt. We passed the following at our conference which sets out how we view the current crisis in Higher Education, and the way to fight back:
Higher Education under attack
The situation in the HE sector is varied, this document is an attempt to sum up the general trends.
- In the past year a majority of HE institutions have faced cuts to staffing and courses, with some areas of the Humanities and Arts facing complete closure on multiple campuses. According to evidence presented to the House of Commons Education Committee, 24 HE institutions are at risk of immediate insolvency within 12 months.
- In the last 18 months, over 15 000 jobs have been cut, thousands more are at risk
- Students on the whole are worse off than they have been before, with frozen maintenance loans and thresholds meaning more and more students are working longer hours to support their studies.
- On a national level, the Labour government has made some very small moves on tuition, with the reintroduction of a very limited number of maintenance grants for a small number of courses. But thresholds remain the same and tuition fees are rising, and the proposals on the table are that they will rise each year at least in line with inflation.
Opposition to the cuts is currently small but growing:
- In the absence of a national dispute, campus unions have had to fight in a multitude of local disputes. The most successful of these have resulted in deals which at best can be described as a stay of execution.
- At a number of universities around the country anti-cuts groups have formed.
The task now is to link up these anti-cuts groups and spread the movement to more campuses, so that organising lessons can be shared and joint action taken against university managements and the government
On United Class Struggle
The crisis in UK Higher Education, while rooted in the marketised funding model, is part of a wider pattern facing workers in other sectors and other countries. We will only be able to change the way we’re going by fighting together. Not just because class unity obviously makes us stronger; but because the root of our situation is our status as workers exploited by capital, and we can only liberate ourselves from this, through worldwide united class struggle.
In recognition of this we should seek out and build links with movements of students and workers fighting similar struggles internationally. We recognise that we are a small and still-developing movement, and that our immediate priority must be building a solid organising base among HE workers and students in the UK. Where we are able, we will offer practical acts of solidarity to other groups and movements; where we are not, we will communicate, share, and learn from them.
