New network launched against uni cuts

Over 31 July and 1 August, students and some higher education workers got together in Sheffield to discuss the formation of a new anti-cuts campaign. The nascent campaign does not yet have a name and as we go to press activists are working that out.

In building for the conference and spreading the work of the loose network of the anti-cuts groups have started to do the necessary work of rebuilding a student left. We have seen activists from Workers’ Liberty, Workers Power, Socialist Students, and the Communist Workers’ Organisation, along with students not in organisations, debate our differences and agree to found a new campaign.

The spread of activists across campuses and the willingness to work together, travel to meet activists, and build the campaign is commendable. We have to recognise that we are starting from a low base. The conditions in which we are organising are very different from even the 2010 generation.

The crisis in Higher Education is at a scale and spread that has not been seen before; it is still varied. Some institutions are making cuts on the back of budget shortfalls, others are using the situation to reshape the university they run. Humanities and the arts have faced some brutal cuts; however, they are not the only courses facing attack. On the national level, the Labour government has made some small moves, including the introduction of a very limited maintenance grant, and under the new Education Minister, has said that university funding and tuition fees are a priority issue — a welcome change from the previous minister who refused to move.

More than half of all students are working more than 16 hours a week. Students on average have “working weeks” of 48 hours, going up to 56 for some who must work even more to support their studies. Many students are not around on campus other than for specific classes.

There is growing unrest about the financial situation for students and graduates; this is coupled with unprecedented job losses and cuts in universities. More than 15,000 jobs have been lost in the last 18 months. Entire departments and courses have been closed. Tuition fees, while rising, are not sufficient for university funding, and maintenance loans that only some students receive are woefully inadequate.

Student “leadership” has fallen back considerably in this time. NUS is a hollowed-out organisation, from the reformist left to the revolutionary; campus organising is also at a low ebb. The movements that started the encampments in solidarity with the Palestinians have not given rise to new layers of activists.

Conference agreed on a minimum set of demands: oppose all cuts, abolition of fees for all students, universal maintenance grant at the level of the living wage, restoration of funding. That education should not be for profit.

All motions and statements passed at conference will be published shortly. We also agreed that we should, as a priority, campaign against the transphobic and unworkable EHRC guidance. Understanding that while some institutions, like the NUS, have said they will resist, they are very likely to fold when they come under pressure from legal challenges.

We also discussed tactics. This was an interesting discussion; there was one motion which sought to clarify the position on boycotts, titled “Ethical consumption and boycotts”. The motion made the case that support for boycotts must be on a case-by-case basis, and on the presumption that it is to support workers’ struggles.

The campaign is going to continue to meet fortnightly for planning and to bring new activists into the work. Before freshers, we will compile, publish and distribute the Student Worker Fightback bulletin to activists ready for distribution at the start of term.

The student movement must be continuously refreshing and rebuilding itself. There are almost 3m students in higher education, with around 500,000 of those being new each year. The campaign plans to organise a series of educational events for activists on the history of the student movement. These will be local initiatives run by activists on the ground, coupled with some national meetings held online.

The campaign has to take the opportunity ahead of it. We have a new Prime Minister, and there is growing unease about the spiralling debt burden on graduates. We can change the balance of forces and make gains. That is going to take serious and diligent work. We will have to work out differences and debate tactics.

We need a class struggle student left, one that takes the fight seriously. Free education is a reality in many places in Europe; in Iceland and Germany it is free for international students too. We have to make links with workers, not just in Higher Education. Free lifelong education is a trade union issue as well as a student issue.