15 February 2002
The Welsh Assembly has decided to restore student grants. They will only be 1500 pounds [ca. 2250 EUR] per year, and means-tested, but all students from Wales can apply for them.
by Sasha Ismael
The Scottish Parliament has already restored student grants and abolished up-front tuition fees (the Welsh Assembly does not have sufficient powers to abolish fees). English students will thus be worse off than Welsh or Scottish ones sitting at the same lecture theatre bench or the same library table, studying the same courses at the same universities.
The New Labour government insists that education is not a right, or a social good, but an individual ecomomic "investment", to be paid for by the investor" if he or she has to funds and calculates that the "profits" (resulting higher wages) are worth it. This view is now more and more discredited.
According to the "Daily Telegraph" of 13 February, the Government is "on the verge of restoring maintenance grants for poorer students in England", to be paid for by a "graduate tax" of an extra 3p [4,5 Euro Cent] in the pound [GBP 1= ca. 1,50 EUR] on income.
The Government "believes that [this] will help defuse the row over financial arrangements for higher education that has dogged Labour since it came to power".
With any luck, it will do just the opposite. It will show convincingly that the government can be budged, and encourage students and the labour movement to demand free good-quality education for all, as a right, and not as an "investment".
Contact the Campaign for Free Education, PO Box 22615, London N4 1WT
Telephone ++44 7771 720935
Email cfe@fsmail.net
