Oppose Higher Education Bill!

Submitted by Matthew on 10 August, 2016 - 10:57 Author: Ben Towse, NCAFC national committee, personal capacity

Last month, students and education workers protested in Parliament Square as the House of Commons passed the Higher Education Bill at its second reading. After the protest National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts activists marched to the Department of Education, and staged a brief sit-in inside the building chanting “Drop the Bill”.

The Bill will now continue progressing through Parliament. If passed, it will implement reforms that will force teachers, departments and universities to compete on market-oriented metrics that will be used to raise fees, and will drive public universities to go bust then help for-profit companies take their place.

The NCAFC is opposing the reforms with an alternative vision: democratic control of education instead of market chaos, and taxing the rich and taking over the banks to fund free, properly-resourced institutions instead of never-ending fee rises.

In the autumn, NCAFC will organise a speaker tour of campuses to make the political case, and activists will be building two major NUS-backed initiatives: a boycott of the marketising National Student Survey unless and until the reforms are withdrawn, and a national demonstration with UCU on Saturday 19 November which is set to oppose the full array of attacks on higher and further education being pursued by this government.

Community and political campaigns and trade union branches as well as current students and education workers, must help build this demonstration. We’re fighting for a free public education system, open to everyone, serving our needs, not just those of employers.

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