A brilliant article on the LRB website charts the relentless march of private capital and ‘for profit’ universities in the UK’s higher education sector – ‘future historians, pondering changes in British society from the 1980s onwards, will struggle to account for the following curious fact.
Although British business enterprises have an extremely mixed record (frequently posting gigantic losses, mostly failing to match overseas competitors, scarcely benefiting the weaker groups in society), and although such arm’s length public institutions as museums and galleries, the BBC and the universities have by and large a very good record (universally acknowledged creativity, streets ahead of most of their international peers, positive forces for human development and social cohesion), nonetheless over the past three decades politicians have repeatedly attempted to force the second set of institutions to change so that they more closely resemble the first’
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n20/stefan-collini/sold-out
UNISON and other education unions are backing today’s protests calling on the Con Dem Government to think again bout its plans to axe the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA).
Nick Clegg’s words will forever come back to haunt him….“Broken promises. There’s been too many in the last few years; too many in the last thirty years. In fact, our nation has been littered with them, a trail of broken promises. You remember them".
Yes, and we will remember yours Nick for a very long time..
The bankers debt passed on to the population now finds its expression in the police response to the youth protesting for a better future. The violence of debt and the repression of the state is captured here on video. The privatisation of higher education must be stopped:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7I-enS27fI
UNISON’s NEC today unanimously supported General Secretary Dave Prentis' call for the immediate announcement of a £10 million war chest on top of our £10 million Industrial Action Fund. This would enable us “to fight the cuts and defend our members” as we go into battle against the worst attacks on public services in living memory.
