Dear All,

As the new term starts if you would like to mark your opposition to what is a new regime in UK Higher Education please sign the petition 

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/opposing-the-crisis-in-higher-education.html

If we get a good response we will send to Guardian letters - please put round other networks. The final sentence alludes to a pilot event to be held in Leeds on December 1st which will bring together a group of trade unionists, university teachers and community and adult education providers and activists to discuss the possibility of launching an alternative workers’ education for all and we hope to hold something national early next year.

The wording is as follows:

We are approaching the first term under a new regime in UK Higher Education, which represents a seismic shift in the nature of public provision, marked by the removal of the cap on tuition fees. As academic staff we wish to declare our continued opposition to a system which will increasingly exclude working class students and others from non-traditional backgrounds and promote higher education as a privilege. The irony is that while students are paying hugely inflated fees (albeit as 'loans'), universities are making cuts in academic, professional and support jobs which will seriously affect the extent and quality of educational provision. The scapegoating of London Metropolitan University as part of a government publicity stunt to bolster its immigration policies, at the same time as university support services are to be contracted out, exemplifies the political nature of the attack on Higher Education. The entry of Pearson Education into ‘the market’ demonstrates the developing privatisation of Higher Education and, as in health and social care, the prospect of large multi-nationals becoming key providers.

We are concerned that education is being shaped by a narrow neoliberal business agenda and that critical education, particularly within the humanities, arts and social sciences, is being marginalised. The assault on Higher Education is accompanied by an attack on funding for trade union, adult and community education. The current crisis should (and is) leading educationalists, students, parents, academics and trade unionists to consider alternatives to this exclusive and increasingly class-based system.

thanks



Dr Sian Moore
Principal Research Fellow in Work, Care and Global Transitions School of Sociology and Social Policy/Centre for Employment Relations Innovation and Change, Leeds University Business School
31 Lyddon Terrace (Room 1.04)
University of Leeds LS2 9JT
0113 343 0204 (office)
07766021821 (mobile)