From today’s Guardian, from a great many signatories, me included:
We write in support of Michael Chessum's article (Today is our 1968 moment, 9 December). There is widespread anger over the government's higher education reforms because they represent the final transformation of our education system from a public into a private good. What we are witnessing is just the latest and sharpest manifestation of the remorseless process of commercialisation of our lives that creates insecurity, anxiety and sheer exhaustion because it piles all the pressure of coping on us as individuals.
Since the 1980s universities and schools have been steadily marketised, and pupils and students commodified. This instrumentalism is such a narrow view of what it means to be human and to be educated. That is why campaigns like UK Uncut, which links corporate tax avoidance to the rebalancing of our depleted public finances, are critical both morally and practically.
Students don't have to be told that we are all in it together. They know it. The students know that education maintenance allowance is critical for young people from low-income families who now attend FE colleges and that cleaners on their campuses should be paid a living wage. The political class may choose to forget, but we don't, that it was the greed of the banks and the free market regime handed to them by our politicians that tipped the nation's finances into crisis.
We start from the belief that education cannot just be a debt trap on a learn-to-earn treadmill that we never get off as the retirement age is extended. Education in our good society is a universal public good which all must explore to reach their fullest potential. It is about the protection and extension of a precious public realm where we know each other not as consumers and competitors but as citizens and co-operators. What is happening is wrong and we must say so in every legal and peaceful way we can — in parliament, in the media, in the all sites of education and on the streets.
Neal Lawson Chair of Compass
Brendan Barber General secretary of TUC
Aaron Porter President of NUS
Sally Hunt General secretary of UCU
Christine Blower General secretary of NUT
Len McCluskey Unite general secretary designate
Tony Woodley Joint general secretary of Unite
Dave Prentis General secretary of Unison
SOAS Occupation
King's College Occupation
Tremough Occupation
Save EMA Campaign
Caroline Lucas Green party MP for Brighton Pavilion
Jon Cruddas Labour MP for Dagenham and Rainham
Councillor Sam Tarry Chair of Young Labour
Professor Richard Grayson Goldsmiths, University of London, and former Liberal Democrat candidate
Gavin Hayes General secretary, Compass
Joe Cox Campaigns organiser, Compass
Cat Smith Chair of Compass Youth
Lisa Nandy Labour MP for Wigan
Eric Illsley Labour MP for Barnsley Central
Bill Esterson Labour MP for Sefton Central
Katy Clark Labour MP for North Ayrshire and Arran
Cllr Rupert Read Green party
Cllr Willie Sullivan Labour party
Sian Berry Former Green candidate for London mayor
Adam Ramsay No Shock Doctrine for Britain
Zita Holbourne Joint chair, Black Activists Rising Against Cuts
Lee Jasper Joint chair, Black Activists Rising Against Cuts
Richard Murphy Tax Research LLP
Clifford Singer False Economy
Sunny Hundal Editor, Liberal Conspiracy:
Howard Reed Director, Landman Economics
Martin Dore General secretary, Socialist Educational Association
Anthony Barnett Founder, openDemocracy
Dr Alan Finlayson Swansea University
Jonathan Glennie Research fellow, Overseas Development Institute
Dr Jeremy Gilbert UEL
Prof Ruth Lister Loughborough University
Prof Stefano Harney QMUL
Prof Martin Parker Warwick Business School
Prof Malcolm Sawyer University of Leeds
Prof Prem Sikka University of Essex
Prof Peter Case UWE
Prof Gregor Gall University of Hertfordshire
Prof Christine Cooper University of Strathclyde
Svetlana Cicmil UWE
Fabian Frenzel UWE
Dr Steffen Boehm University of Essex
Dr Paul Warde UEA
Dr Lee Marsden UEA
Prof Howard Stevenson University of Lincoln
Prof Michael Fielding Institute of Education
Dr David Toke University of Birmingham
Yiannis Gabriel University of Bath
Prof George Irvin SOAS
Armin Beverungen UWE
Dr David Cunningham University of Westminster
Stevphen Shukaitis University of Essex
Kevin Brehony Royal Holloway
Gabrielle Ivinson Cardiff University
Dr Michael Collins UCL
Pat Devine University of Manchester
Dr Joe Street Northumbria University
Judith Suissa Institute of Education
Jonathan Perraton University of Sheffield
Jo Brewis University of Leicester
Stephen Dunne University of Leicester
Jo Grady University of Leicester
Dr Marie Lall Institute of Education
Anoop Bhogal University of Leicester
Stuart White Jesus College, Oxford
Dr Chris Grocott University of Birmingham
Mark Perryman University of Brighton
Prof David Parker University of Leeds
Prof Ken Spours Institute of Education
Chris Edwards UEA
Nicola Pratt University of Warwick
Dr David Harvie University of Leicester
Dr Priyamvada Gopal University of Cambridge
Michael Edwards UCL
Dr Ben Little Middlesex University
Hugh Willmott Cardiff Business School
Dr Gareth Stockey University of Nottingham
Prof William Outhwaite University of Newcastle
Matthew McGregor Student officer, Sheffield University 2001-02
Prof Simon Lilley University of Leicester
Katherine Corbett Middlesex University SU arts and education chair
Dr A Kemp-Welch UEA
Graham Lane Former chair of LGA education committee
Prof Robert Hampson
Prof Sally Tomlinson
David Ritter
Laurie Penny
Anne Coddington
Rebecca Hickman
Martin Yarnit
Byron Taylor
Nick Dearden
Victor Anderson
Rosemary Bechler
Dan Taubman
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Succinctly and powerfully put, Richard, and had the letter come my way I would have signed it too, as would many of my colleagues at the Open University, I’m sure.
I hope that all those LibDem MPs who support current ConDem HE policies, and the HE bills still to be voted on, read this and finally understand that whether or not their policy for tutition fees is more ‘progressive’ than the current system is a red herring. It is that they are presiding over something far greater and more worrying – the final destruction of an education system (and I mean system because schools policy is heading in the same direction)that was built on the philosophy of eduction as a public good.
I couldn’t put it any better than has Ivan.
Thirded.
They are basically asset stripping the public sector.
It’s dem con cuts!
(Sorry, might be funny if it wasn’t so damn serious)
What we are witnessing is the complete commodification of our lives and the further implementation of brutal neoliberal policies under the guise of the financial crisis. Similar policies were imposed in many of the developing countries from the 1970s onwards by the IMF and World Bank as the Washington Consensus and were largely disastrous. Now they are being imposed on us and we are more or less a Heavily Indebteded Rich Country as a result of reckless commercial banking policies. It is not surprising that young people feel very betrayed by the political and economic elites and actually many of the older generation (and I am in this category) feel the same.
[…] ConDem Higher Education policies, and the Higher Education bills still to be voted on, read this and finally understand that whether or not their policy for tuition fees is more ‘progressive’ […]
I fully support this. We ae selling out the next generation(s)and I hope it will not rebound on us.