Building and coordinating the resistance in further, higher and adult education
May 15, 2012 Leave a comment
The wrecker of our universties must go! (Click on image for poster)
On the 24th May Minister for Universities and Science David Willetts is due to come to UEA to give a talk on ‘What’s government good for?’. Click here for facebook Read more of this post
May 14, 2012 Leave a comment
What is the future for young academics? Conference and Campaign Launch
Where? SOAS (Central London)
When? May 26
Graduate teachers face unique pressures from Universities: Experience of teaching is invaluable for career progression, whilst institutions face a crisis in funding due to the coalition governments attack on education. This means that many institutions are increasingly relying on graduate teachers for the bulk of undergraduate class teaching, and feel able to offer terms and conditions that are unacceptable.
This conference aims to bring together graduate teachers from across the country to share experience, launch a network that can work with the UCU and NUS, and plan a campaign that can win.
Speakers & Sessions:
* Professor Les Back, Goldsmiths Sociology Department: The Importance of Social Research
* Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers: Is your employer breaking the law? How to read a contract of employment
* Andrew McGettigan: Education Researcher. The Governments Plan for Higher Education
* Regi Pilling, UCU Anti-Casualisation Campaign: Getting the UCU onboard
* Dante Micheaux: NUS Post Graduate Research Offi cer: Getting the NUS onboard *Plenary: Where next for the campaign?
Supported by LSE SU, Goldsmiths SU, Goldsmiths UCU, London Region UCU, EAN, NCAFC
for more info please email Su.Postgrad@lse.ac.uk or educationactivist@gmail.com
April 21, 2012 Leave a comment
Striking students in the Canadian province of Quebec are vowing to escalate their fight against an increase in tuition fees after police used tear gas, shock grenades and arrested dozens of protesters this Friday.
March 15, 2012 Leave a comment
The government’s decision to postpone its Higher Education Bill epitomises the chaotic and disingenuous approach to higher education of the universities minister, David Willetts.
He has introduced measures that will dismantle the existing university system yet is not prepared to expose them to public scrutiny. He has created an artificial market for student admissions that forces universities into ruthless competition with each other, requiring them to fight with ‘rivals’ over a pool of students with AAB qualifications. Those who lose out will face dramatic cuts in their income. Institutions that fail to recruit enough highly qualified graduates are likely to scrap courses and cut staff costs to meet the shortfall.
Students already have fewer courses to choose from and will now be obliged to take out huge loans from the government to meet their spiralling cost. These loans have been ‘sold’ to prospective students as income-contingent, but in truth they are government policy-contingent since the repayment threshold and interest rates can be changed at will and with retrospective effect.
David Willetts is preparing our universities for privatisation on the shambolic lines established by Andrew Lansley for our hospitals. Yet Willetts is implementing his measures without debate. In October, a select committee set up by his own department urged him to put on hold his artificial admissions market. Willetts ignored this, and has since failed to meet his own deadlines on responding to the consultation processes he himself launched over higher education reform. Over 20 000 people have signed a motion of no confidence in the minister, along with universities including Oxford, Bath, Birkbeck and Leeds.o. It is time for the wrecker of our universities to go
Dr Jim Wolfreys, UCU NEC
Professor Peter Hallward, Kingston University & EAN
Dr. Kate Tunstall, Oxford University Campaign for Higher Education
Professor John Holmwood, Campaign for the Public University
March 14, 2012 Leave a comment
Sign the Petition Here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/support-suspended-cambridge-university-student/
We, the undersigned, condemn the decision to suspend a student from the University of Cambridge for two and half years for his part in a peaceful protest against the government’s higher education policy. Read more of this post
March 13, 2012 Leave a comment
- Press Release – Press Release – Press Release – Press Release – Press Release – Press Release – Press Release – Press Release –
Education Activist Network
educationactivist@gmail.com
http://educationactivistnetwork.wordpress.com
contact Mark Bergfeld on 07545488417
Students say: Universities Minister David Willetts must go!
The National Union of Students has called for a national day of walk-outs on 14 March. The Education Activist Network alongside a number of Students‘ Unions is calling a demonstration from ULU to the Department of Business, Skills and Innovation (Assembly time 2pm) Read more of this post
March 1, 2012 Leave a comment
by Andrew McGettigan
This post originally appeared here
Later this month (March), I will finally pay off the student loans I took out in the 1990s. These were maintenance loans: I graduated before the introduction of what were called ‘topup’ fees (at first £1 000 per year), and amounted to just under £5 000 when I finished. It has taken me nearly 14 years to repay that debt. Read more of this post
February 28, 2012 Leave a comment
Willetts must go! Demonstrate at the Department for Business, Skills and Innovation on 14 March.
facebook http://www.facebook.com/events/193707544066925/
Assemble at ULU at 2pm; called by EAN, NCAFC and ULU Read more of this post
February 25, 2012 Leave a comment
What are universities for? Should they be businesses ‘competing on price’? Are students ‘consumers’, concerned only with getting jobs? A half-baked market ideology informs official thinking about higher education, and it undermines an ideal that a vast number of people cherish
February 25, 2012 Leave a comment
EAN co-ordination, Sunday 4 March, 12-3pm, ULU
Strikes, walkouts and the defence of education
12-1.30pm: Developing a strategy for defending education
- Understanding the nature of the attacks we face
- Developing effective staff-student networks
- Learning from successful disputes
1.30pm -3pm: March 2012 and beyond: building effective action
- 14 March: NUS walkout and BIS demonstration
- 28 March pensions strike: pickets, protests and rallies
- After 28 March: escalating and deepening the action
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