Growing Privatisation threat to UK Universities

#demo2012 A central demand of both education unions and student movements worldwide is for state funding and provision of higher education. Yet in the USA 'For Profit' Universities are the third fastest growing industry - having grown on average by 13.6% each year since 2002 - with extensive use of TV programmes and the internet as low cost alternatives to the classroom. A recent University and College Union (UCU) report revealed how private equity funds are taking over post-secondary education and Luke Martell, writing this week on the Open Kingdom website, highlights the unprecedented threat of privatisation to the UK's universities:
http://www.ucu.org.uk/media/pdf/0/l/ucu_psopi_oct12.pdf
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/luke-martell/fighting-for-public-university

Martell states that 'UCU and UNISON have anti-privatisation policies. If you’re a member of one of these unions and you say you want to fight privatisation, you’re following your union’s policy. And groups beyond the unions have a stake and the right to be involved. They shouldn’t need permission to defend from the bottom-up the places they are part of.

Unless we act against education privatisation it will set in and be difficult to reverse. It’s unrolling nationally, and local responses need to operate in a way which engages with this. We shouldn’t be negotiating privatisation. We should be turning it back.'