There’s nothing like a good kick in the guts from ‘the powers that be’ to bring the student left together. We’ve seen it from Gillard and boy is it about to get worse under Abbott. That’s why it’s so exciting to announce that students from across the country recently formed an activist network to share skills and ideas, in the hope of building a long term national fight back against the constant threat of a neoliberal agenda to education.
In the last 18 months universities around the country have seen attacks on almost all fronts. First with the inadequate redistribution of the SSAF, then with cuts announced to teaching staff and administrative support staff, and thus to units and courses offered. There has been talk of deregulating student fees- which would inevitably lead to price hikes for students – and whole departments have seen their very existence threatened by the university and government’s penny pinching razor gangs. It goes without saying that the latest attack, in the form of Gillard’s recently announced $2.8 billion cuts to the tertiary sector to fund the Gonski reforms makes the picture seem pretty grim indeed.
But the news is not all bad! Across the nation the student movement seems to be slowly awakening from its long slumber. Already there have been significant fight backs organised out of Sydney University – where last year a broad left coalition of students waged a largely successful campaign to roll back of their VC’s proposed cuts to Humanities staff -, and at John Curtin University in Western Australia, where the entire student union has been greatly radicalized ). Out of the Sydney success story, an exclusively NSW organisation dubbed the CCEAN (Cross Campus Education Action network) has emerged to bring other universities from across the state facing similar issues into the fold. This in turn sowed the seeds for the creation of a nation-wide network for student activists to share skills, knowledge and tactics.
And so, at the second Edufactory, “a radical education activism conference in Australia” held at Sydney University for four days over Anzac Day weekend, students from different universities and different political persuasions came together to formally create an autonomous and radical activist network they dubbed ‘Class Action’, to operate outside of – but when possible, in collaboration with – the peak representative body, the National Union of Students.
So what is the network exactly? Tim Scriven, a student activist and anarcho-syndicalist from Sydney Uni who played a leading role in Class Action’s creation describes it as a “network that’s been set up by education activists to fight for free, quality education. Anyone can participate and everyone is encouraged to.”
Jason Ray, a senior figure from ASEN (The Australian Student Environment Network, a grassroots activist group that split from the NUS in 2005 but last month played a leading role in Class Action’s formation) goes further, “With Class Action we have the opportunity to circumvent the traditional layers of representation in student politics that dilute and alienate the average student from having a direct stake in the quality of their education. Hopefully wider student participation in this growing issue will engender an understanding and resentment of the underlying ‘logic of the market’ that is deteriorating not only our education but social welfare and environment”.
However, despite historical tensions between the NUS and members of the more radical student left, Clare Keyes-Liley, the NUS Education Officer and member of the National Labor Students (Labor Left), has expressed a genuine willingness to engage and work with the fledgling Class Action body. As she puts it, “it is excellent to see the left mobilising on education activism nationally. We’re currently looking down the barrel of a deeply conservative and reactionary Federal Government come September, the left in student activism needs to remain focused on the fight and united as a group”.
The creation of Class Action is hopefully a sign of bigger and better things to come. Let’s leave the last word to Casey Thompson, the Education Officer and member of the Sydney Labor Students at Sydney Uni, “Class Action will be a great thing for the future of student activism and more importantly for the future of education in Australia. It will be a unifying and guiding body for future struggles and allow our, often-divided, movement to come together and seriously challenge the neoliberal project attacking our universities and schools. The establishment of Class Action gives me hope. We can look to the future and see the presence of a strong force fighting for students and their fundamental rights – free, quality education”
To get involved visit the following page – and don’t forget to join the Monash Education Action Group.
http://www.facebook.com/classactionaustralia
