STRIKE May 14- State Library of Victoria
Under the banner of ‘Gonski education reforms’ the Labor party is selling itself as the great representative of education in Australia whilst systematically putting students under the eraser and, in the long term, devaluing education proper. For what? Austerity measures representative of ideological demands and not unconditional economic demands. The Federal Government’s plan to cut $2.8 billion from the university sector – including a $48 million cut to Monash University – is an attack on education. This attack, which is supported by the Coalition, is representative of the way in which education has been redefined.
This redefinition of what education fundamentally is, is antithetical to the conception of education as a process of learning. Learning entails creative and critical inquiry, and the ability to develop as a human subject via learning how to think, and how to think for oneself (contra-indoctrination). This benefits both the individual and the progress of society in allowing the ability to methodologically question doctrine, create alternatives to accepted dogma, stimulate imaginative and free thought, and enable the progress of critical thinking. This is a conception of education as a public good in itself; it is a conception of education as necessary – and necessarily available to all – and a fundamental right that precedes, in terms of priority, other functions of the state.
In opposition to this conception, the attacks on higher education by the Federal Government represent a redefinition of education that amounts to, at best, a mere preliminary instruction for the workforce and, at worst, a market with a corporate structure, selling the privilege of education to the privileged. That is, in opposition to education conceived of as a right and necessary good, education is conceived of as a commodity functioning in accordance with narrow disciplinary training. This, however, is not simply an abstracted and ideological argument. The implementation of this redefinition, inclusive of the $2.8 billion dollar attack on higher education, is expressed concretely for university students: more loans to pay back and thus, furthering the imposition of a debt-trap onto students, in turn creating narrower limitations for one’s future life. With start-up scholarships to be converted into loans repayable in the same manner as HECS debt (saving the government $1.2 billion), in conjunction with the cutting of the 10% saving for students who pre-pay their HECS debt and the limiting of the tax deductibility of self-education expenses (saving the government $500 million) the conception of university education as a user-pays business in contradistinction to education as a necessary public good (with a saving of $230 million for the government) is furthered.
Moreover, such changes come after the government last year cut $1 billion to tertiary education and, as well as this, removed caps on the number of students universities could enrol, without proportionately increasing the amount funding in correlation to this number. Thus the amount of funding per student decreased.
To compound the problem, the efficiency dividend of 2 per cent from 2014 and 1.25 per cent the following year contributes a saving of $900 million (averaging $300 million a year) at the expense and further exploitation of staff and teachers, who face job losses, increasing casualisation, and more hours with less resources. Students too suffer for this, facing a threat to the quality of education these cuts impose, less staff access, and less services available to students. These cuts, according to the NTEU, “will diminish the educational opportunities for our most disadvantaged young people and undermine the quality of their learning experience” and will jeopardise the future of the education sector.
Universities Australia has described the cuts as representing “the biggest reductions in funding to the university system and student support since 1996” and have stated that of the $2.3 billion, “$1 billion would be cut from university revenue with the remainder of the burden falling on students.” To put this in context, this attack on higher education is deemed necessary to fund the Gonski education reforms, all the while the Government spends $13 billion on coal subsidies, $4 billion on mining subsidies, $1 billion on mandatory detention, and – as recently announced – plans to spend $3 billion on purchasing a spy drone fleet.
Both the government and university management expect students to passively accept the cuts being made to universities and the reconceptualisation of education from a necessary public good into a commodity and into a procedure of disciplinary training governed in accordance to a business model. But passivity cannot be an option. If you are a Monash student and if you care about education in Australia, you are already implicated: the question is how one responds and not whether or not one responds. Monash students can respond actively to resist these proposed cuts and to resist the devaluing and destruction of higher education in Australia. Whilst both major parties marginalise students and erase student representation and the representation of the interests of education, Monash students like students all over the world can unite in opposition to these cuts. From the inspiring achievements of students in Quebec who successfully fought fee increases, to the students in Chile currently fighting for free education and to overturn the changes made to education under the Pinochet dictatorship, and the students in Mexico currently protesting against the fee increases. Students all over the world are not accepting the attacks on education. The students of Monash University can unite in demonstration against these abhorrent attacks and, given that the Federal Government, Vice-Chancellor Ed Byrne, and Monash University management is not representing students, teachers, or staff, we need to represent ourselves and represent the interests of education.
Monash University students can unite and mobilise, as students in NSW have already. We have already seen passivity in the face of Monash management governing and government cuts begin to erode, and be replaced by action. Engagement of students is increasing, as evident in the activities of the Monash Education Action Group and the turnout of over 300 students to the MSA Student General Meeting on May 1st. We can continue to build the student movement at Monash and, come budget day, May 14th, we can send a clear message to the Federal Government that we will actively resist the attacks on education and we can send a clear message that students are capable of uniting and representing themselves. We must unite as Monash students to demonstrate against the $48 million being cut from Monash University; we must unite as Monash students to demonstrate against the $2.8 billion assault on higher education; we must unite as Monash students and with university students all over Australia in order to represent ourselves and represent the interests of education.
Skip your classes on budget day; all students must mobilise for the National Student Strike on Tuesday, May 14.
