universities | ukwatch.net

Rushing to Nottingham's Defence

Ellie Keen — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Two academics from the University Nottingham have condemned the campaign in support of Hicham Yezza, an employee of Nottingham University charged over terrorism offences and released only to be re-arrested over spurious immigration offences. The two, Dr Sean Matthews and Dr Macdonald Daly, while expressing concern for the situation currently facing Mr Yezza who is being indefinitely held in immigration detention, condemn what they call the “irresponsible, opportunistic and unethical conduct of many colleagues involved in the campaign to support Mr Yezza.”

The authors of the statement start by making two substantive points. Firstly, that “we are confident that the University’s declarations about upholding academic freedom have been reflected in its response to the arrests.” Secondly, they claim that “we do not believe that the arrests constitute a challenge or threat to academic freedom.”

The argument therefore turns around whether the arrest of Hicham Yezza and Rizwaan Sabir, originally for downloading and printing an Al Qaeda training manual, was in contravention of academic freedom. Matthews and Daly contend that academic freedom has not been violated and that the University, in immediately reporting the matter to the police, was merely fulfilling its legal duty.

They also place the blame at Yezza and Sabir’s door by claiming that they acted irresponsibly by colluding to print out the document (Mr. Sabir, a student asked his friend, Yezza, a staff member to print the document out for him for free). Had they not done so, the matter would never have come to the notice of the authorities. In making this claim, the authors are noting that banal occurrences of this nature happen on a regular basis. What they fail to do is make the connection between Sabir and Yezza’s actions and the heavy-handedness of the response. As was noted in the letter signed by staff and students at Sussex and Brighton Universities, it is clear that if the two “culprits” were not of Middle-Eastern/North African origin, their actions would have gone unnoticed, given that the document they printed out is widely available on various official websites, including that of the US government. Simply, a two-tiered rule is being applied: one for those safe in the knowledge that their white privilege will shield them from the law, even if – as happens on a regular basis – they contravene “the rules” by getting a friend to do their printing for them; another for those on the “most wanted” list that connects them by skin colour, religion and/or national origin to those purported to be “out to get us”.

What is even more worrying about this case is the connection to immigration. Hicham Yezza is now being held in detention pending potential deportation from the UK for violation of his immigration status. This appears spurious given that he was working for the University, which must have been aware of his legal status, and about to apply for British citizenship based on his 13 years of residence in the UK. Despite this, the authors of the statement claim:

Had Mr Yezza been able to substantiate his claim to the University that he had the appropriate legal employment status, as all employees are required to do when they take up a post, or even had he been able later when the University asked him, as it is legally required to do, to provide documentation to substantiate such a claim, he would not have been arrested for immigration irregularities. Again, the responsibility for his arrest appears to relate to his own failure to provide appropriate documentation.

By putting the case in such procedural terms, Matthews and Daly are missing two points: Firstly, procedurally, no University in the UK employs anyone before their immigration status has been officially verified. Therefore, the immigration offences he is deemed to have committed appear mainly to be bogus. Secondly and more importantly, the authors fail to admit that current policy on “terrorism” works also to demonise “immigrants” as potential terrorists. Thus, by very virtue of one’s status as a non-citizen from outside the EU, the US, Australia, etc. one is potentially guilty of plotting against the British state. Countless people, many long-term residents of the UK, have fallen victim of this politics that condemns people, especially those of “Arab” or “Muslim” origin, to de facto suspicion. As is documented in the film Taking Liberties, this has led to individuals being condemned to indefinite house arrest or imprisonment in criminal and/or immigration detention centres despite no hard evidence being brought against them relating to their purported links to terrorism.

This leads back to the issue of academic freedom. Part of what the current attack on universities from government and big business is doing is to silence individual academics who have chosen this career precisely because traditionally it enabled us to speak openly and freely about issues that concern us. It is ironic that, on the one hand, the talk is of liberalisation and flexibility, and on the other, we are being asked to police our students, suspected of involvement with “radical islamists”. In the logic of the market, academics are styling their research funding applications to suit what they think will be funded rather than what they wish to research; what they believe will benefit society.

Ironicially, one of the biggest research areas identified by the research councils in tandem with government policy, is that of “security studies”. This is exactly what Rizwaan Sabir was engaged in, downloading a document that is considered by security specialists crucial to the understanding of why “they hate us” and how terror networks such as Al Qaeda function. The question left begging, thefore, is just what kind of research is admissible and who should be allowed to carry it out? In absence of a clear response, we are all left asking the question, who will be next to be picked off, and how soon before it is not someone who can be attacked through the vehicle of immigration offences as was the case in Germany last year. And what, in the present climate, will no longer be deemed admissible research? If these are not questions of academic freedom, surely little else is…

UCU's decision a blow to business-as-usual

JamieSW — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 16:21:24 +0000

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) salutes the British University and College Union (UCU) for its principled support for the cause of justice and peace in Palestine and for adopting, at its annual congress on 28 May 2008, significant steps in the direction of applying effective pressure on Israel and holding it accountable for its colonial and apartheid policies which violate international law and fundamental human rights.

The UCU’s condemnation of the “apparent complicity of most of the Israeli academy,” its appeal to its members “to consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions,” and its decision to “greylist” — a notch short of boycott — the “colonising” Israeli college in the illegal settlement of Ariel are the strongest indicators to date that the Union has resolutely moved forward in the direction of gradually ending business-as-usual with Israeli universities. The congress resolutions also attest to the Union’s courageous refusal to bow to legal and other forms of bullying and intimidation, waged recently by Israel and Zionist pressure groups in the UK and elsewhere in an attempt to suppress the boycott debate and muzzle views within the UCU that are critical of the Israeli occupation.

Besides the boycott-leaning motion cited above, the UCU censured the Israeli trade union federation, the Histadrut, urging it to take a position against the “siege of Gaza” and to call for “an end to the occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territory.” Recognizing the “humanitarian catastrophe imposed on Gaza by Israel and the EU,” the UCU decided to send a fact-finding delegation to the occupied territory.

This sincere solidarity with Palestine shown by British academic trade unionists is particularly welcome and timely in light of Israel’s recent escalation of its colonial and racist policies against the Palestinian people. Israel has continued with unprecedented impunity its criminal siege of the occupied Gaza Strip, curtailing fuel, medicine and food supplies, thereby causing the death of dozens of innocent civilians, including premature babies, chronically ill senior citizens, among others, and the unspeakable devastation of the livelihood of 1.5 million Palestinians. It has also carried on with its policy of indiscriminate, often willful, killing of Palestinian civilians, at least a third of whom are children; confiscation of Palestinian land and water resources; construction of the apartheid Wall, condemned as illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004; and wanton destruction of Palestinian agricultural lands, infrastructure and entire civilian neighborhoods.

Furthermore, for the last six decades, Israel has treated its own Palestinian citizens with institutionalized racism, while denying millions of Palestinian refugees, ethnically cleansed in 1948, their UN-sanctioned rights, including the right to return to their homes.

At this time of exceptional Israeli brutality, impunity and war crimes against the indigenous Palestinian people, especially in Gaza and the Naqab desert area, the UCU has risen to its moral responsibility by taking exceptional measures to hold Israel to account. It is also worth noting that the UCU, implementing a decision taken at its congress in 2007, recently hosted representatives from the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees on a UK-wide speaking tour. But the UCU is not alone, certainly not in the UK. The largest two trade unions, Unison and TGWU, Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine (APJP), the National Union of Journalists, the Church of England, among others, have all adopted diverse measures supporting boycott, divestment or sanctions against Israel in recent years. Some of Britain’s most prominent cultural figures, including Ken Loach, John Berger and Nigel Kennedy, have expressed publicly their support for the Palestinian call for boycott*. The efforts of our colleagues in the British Committee for Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) also deserve mention. Since its inception, BRICUP has worked in a determined and principled way to defend and spread the message of the academic boycott. We are proud to be associated with such a distinguished group of academics.

The UCU has proven beyond doubt that effective solidarity with the oppressed is the most morally and politically sound contribution to the struggle to end oppression and to promote human rights as well as a just and peaceful future for all.

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The Palestinian call for boycott of Israeli academic institutions (http://www.pacbi.org/campaign_statement.htm) is endorsed by the major federations and associations of academics and professionals, including the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE) and the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU). It is supported by dozens of civil society institutions in Palestine, like the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations’ Network (PNGO).

Newcastle University Pushes Clean Coal

Ellie Keen — Mon, 19 May 2008 23:28:57 +0000

Simon Cunich
10 May 2008

“[It] would be imprudent to tip the winners in the race for low emission technologies”, wrote Barney Glover, University of Newcastle deputy vice-chancellor, in an April 10 letter defending the university’s research in so-called clean coal technologies.

“In the race to find a solution to the problem of climate change, clean coal may have a future role”, he wrote.

His letter was in response to a statement presented to the university by students at the Fossil Fools’ Day protest on April 1. The statement criticised the university’s role as a partner of the Cooperative Research Centre for Coal in Sustainable Development, an Australia-wide research partnership which aims to “optimise the contribution of coal to a sustainable future”.

Glover is on the board of the CCSD.

The students’ statement argued that the university “cannot provide independent research into climate change solutions while it is a CCSD partner alongside some of the world’s largest mining corporations (Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Xstrata Coal)”.

According to the statement, between 2001 and 2007 the university spent more than $3.6 million in cash and in-kind contributions to the CCSD. Meanwhile, Newcastle University joins many of the same corporations as a partner of the Cooperative Research Centre for Mining.

As well as mining companies, the CCSD also brings together the University of Queensland, the University of NSW, Macquarie University, and Curtin University of Technology. The statement argued that the CCSD “is being driven by the coal industry’s interests rather than a genuine response to climate change”.

According to the vast majority of climate scientists, drastic changes have to be made within the next 10 years to keep global warming under 2°C (above pre-industrial levels). According to Friends of the Earth, warming above 2-2.4° C would lead to further unavoidable rises, taking temperatures beyond the range of the last million years.

The change necessary to avoid this, the statement argued, would involve a reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions of 50-80% by 2050. This would require “a rapid shift away from the use of coal and other dirty fossil fuels for energy production”.

Clean coal research is based on the idea that we can continue to extract and burn coal but bury the carbon emissions underground through an as yet unproven technology known as carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Even if the technology is successful the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has assessed that “the majority of CCS deployment will occur in the second half of this century”, which is too late to make the necessary reductions to keep global warming below two degrees.

“The expectation that CCS technology will be successful in the future cannot be used to justify the expansion of the coal industry today … Rather, as long as clean coal remains unviable, the mining, burning and exporting of coal must be drastically reduced”, the statement said.

If the university is serious about developing solutions to climate change it should call for coal to be phased out until clean coal is proven viable, if it ever is. A transition away from coal is possible because, in contrast to CCS, renewable energy technologies already exist.

The statement called on the university to prioritise research and development of renewable energy technologies. “[These technologies] could be further developed and implemented on a far greater scale with the support of the government and institutions like our University.”

The university conducts renewable energy and clean coal research at its Priority Research Centre for Energy. However, the centre is unlikely to “win the race” to solve climate change with its current inadequate aim to “develop technologies that can reduce greenhouse gases internationally by 2% and nationally by 20% by 2030”.

Universities must play a central role in developing responses to climate change. This requires more public funding and independence from coal corporations that are doing their best to preserve business-as-usual.

Loyalty to Corporation, Services to Customers

Ellie Keen — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 11:12:20 +0000

HEFCE wants from staff loyalty. From an article by John Gill in THES, 30 Nov 2007:

A report from the Leadership, Governance and Management Strategic Committee of the Higher Education Funding Council for England says that the sector is “on the cusp of substantial and complex change” and calls for staff to adopt new attitudes.

It says: “Staff will need to be more aware of and aligned to the strategic needs of the higher education institution.

“Academics’ goals are often related to their discipline rather than their institution, and they will need to develop institutional loyalties in addition to discipline loyalties.”

It also warns universities not to be “afraid” of the language and culture of business, and says that managerial leadership is not valued or rewarded highly enough.

So, the new corporate mentality of universities make them love loyalty and demand loyalty from their staff.

But it is widely accepted that a person’s answers to the question “What you do not like?” provide more insights into his/her personality than answers to a positively charged question “What do you like?” Let us apply the same approach to universities and see what they do not like.

A case study is provided by the Leeds Metropolitan University’s programme document “Leeds Met ACTS: Attitude, Character & Talents” for its new staff performance development system, see Leeds Met ACTs Source Booklet. Staff attitudes are divided in two groups: More Effective Behaviours and Less Effective Behaviours. It is the Less Effective Behaviours list that is interesting. A few gems:

Does not accept the concept of “customer” or “service user”
Does not demonstrate respect for rules, regulations and procedures
Does not prepare written or verbal communication effectively for meetings and other interactions
Does not engage with the Vision & Character of Leeds Met
Does not volunteer new ideas/suggestions for improvement
Sceptical about change – lets negative reaction to change affect morale of self and others
Fails to explain the need/reasons for change
Talks negatively about others and the university
Uses learning and development opportunities purely for own self development or recognition

We see the prominent role of the concept of “customer” or “service user”. It is another key buzzword; I feel that it is directly linked to the loyalty issue.

Indeed, Lewis Elton‘s brief letter to THES (“Client not customer”, 25 November 2005) contains a remarkably precise formulation:

Students are neither customers (“persons who buy”), nor consumers (“persons who purchase goods or services”) – they are clients (“persons who seek the advice of a professional man or woman”). [...] (All quotes are from the Collins English Dictionary.)

If we accept that students are clients who seek the advice of a professional man or woman, we instantly recognise that the relations between a client and a professional are regulated by professional codices controlled by a wider professional community. You cannot just come to a solicitor, hand her money and dictate what she has to do for you — a solicitor’s primary responsibility is compliance with the law and extensive professional regulations. Similarly, you cannot come to GP and demand a prescription — it is a doctor’s duty to decide what is best for you on the basis of his experience and, again, norms of his profession.

In my humble opinion, only loyalty to their disciplines and their communities makes academics what they are. In the present disputes about the future of academia, we have to insist that we are professionals, that only the peer review and peer control of professional communities ensures both rigour of research and high standards of education — and, of course, we have to insist that students are our clients. Moreover, it is crucial for survival of universities that some of our students become our disciples and absorb the ethics norms of our communities.

HEFCE wants to de-professionalise university staff by cutting their connections to professional communities and professional networks.

It could be part of a wider picture: anecdotal evidence suggests an increasingly hostile stance of the Government towards learned societies. But this is a serious issue which has to be properly discussed on its own.

Disclaimer. Should I remind you that my views are mine alone and not those of my employer, or of any professional organisation, or anyone else, for that matter?

Labour makes Massive Cuts in Higher Education

Ellie Keen — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:35:00 +0000

The Labour government of Prime Minster Gordon Brown is implementing significant cuts in higher education.

Last September the government announced that it planned to remove £100 million of funding from students studying for a second degree. These students are known as Equivalent or Lower level Qualification students (ELQs). The measure was announced in a letter from the Universities Secretary, John Denham, to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), instructing it to remove £100 million a year from the funding of ELQ students.

It is estimated that the policy will affect an initial 170,000 mostly part-time students. The changes will be introduced in the next academic term of 2008-09. Since the measures were announced, more than 18,000 people have signed an online petition to the prime minister. The petition supports a call from the Open University for the decision to be delayed.

The government has attempted to justify the cuts on the basis that the lost funding would instead be redirected to students taking their first degrees. The reality is that the proposals are a vital part of the government’s strategy to deregulate and privatise higher education, in order to make it the preserve of more affluent layers.

The £100 million represents a tiny fraction (0.1 percent) of the government’s higher education budget, but its removal sets a precedent. The government intends to incorporate the private sector directly into the provision and funding of higher education. As part of its proposals, the government is calling on private sector corporations to pay towards the costs of ELQ students. The letter stated, “In many cases, it may be appropriate for the employer to pay at least a proportion of the costs of such re-training.”

The hardest hit higher education institutions will be the Open University and Birkbeck College, London. The Open University is the largest academic institution in the UK by student number, with more than 180,000 students enrolled, including more than 25,000 students studying overseas. According to research carried out by the Universities College Union (UCU), the withdrawal of its ELQ funding will leave 29,000 OU students without funding and will cost it £31.6 million in teaching funding by 2014.

David Vincent, the Pro Vice Chancellor of the University said, “The Open University is threatened with a loss of more than £30 million of its teaching income. It will have a real impact on those who have a degree but want to continue with their education, to develop their skills, to improve their employment chances or further their careers. For the OU and other institutions in the part-time sector, this is the biggest cut in funded numbers the English higher education system has witnessed for a generation.”

Nine out of ten of the higher education institutions facing the largest ELQ cuts in percentage terms are located in London. An estimated 54 percent of students affected by the loss of funding study in the capital. At Birkbeck College, a third of its students have ELQ status. The university is set to lose £7.8 million in teaching funding by 2014.

Birkbeck issued a statement opposing the cuts and revealed the devastating impact they will cause: “Many Birkbeck students embark on the major step of studying for a second qualification later in life in order to become more employable or to change career direction. Across the sector, ELQ students are mostly part-time and clustered at institutions like Birkbeck and the Open University, so these highly targeted cuts will have a disproportionate effect on the part-time sector.

“If urgent action is not taken to support Birkbeck and other part-time institutions, these cuts will have an immediate and detrimental effect on all part-time students and the government’s skills agenda. Classes will be vulnerable to closure, choice will be reduced and the student experience will be impoverished.”

A further 24 institutions will lose over £2 million each in teacher funding.

The financial cost to students themselves as a result is set to immediately escalate. Universities have warned that the cuts will mean that fees for such students will be forced up above £7,000 per year. Many of the OU’s students are part-time, on low incomes or benefits and rely entirely on government funding in order to study. Some 13 percent of OU ELQ students live in areas of severe multiple deprivations (within the bottom 25 percent of areas scored against the Index of Multiple Deprivation). OU statistics show that 3,500 ELQ students have special needs and 600 are unable to work owing to illness. OU Vice Chancellor Professor Brenda Gourley said the university was already seriously looking at charging higher fees: “Our core mission is to bring in more students at the lower end of the scale, and we will continue with this aim. But we’ll have to carry out market surveys to see what people will pay. While the government thinks employers are willing to fund their staff’s education, that hasn’t been our experience.”

Despite almost universal opposition, a January 9 vote in Parliament supported the cuts by a majority of 53 votes. As part of a phony “consultation” exercise, the government asked for submissions from individuals and organisations prior to a House of Commons’ select committee which took evidence on the ELQ issue in mid January. The government had no intention of changing its course even though the vast majority of the 478 submissions—470—stated they opposed the policy.

On January 17, in an attempt to deflect the widespread criticism to its plans, Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell announced that an extra £10 million would be directed towards funding part-time degrees. This would increase funding for students on part-time courses from £20 million to £30 million. The move was described in various quarters including by the opposition Conservative Party as a “retreat.” It was nothing of the sort. The £100 million cut remains in place.

The University and College Union, which represents 117,000 members in higher education, stated that the cuts were part of an overall slashing of the budget of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS). The government previously announced that it plans to implement “efficiency savings” rising to £1.5 billion a year by 2010-11. However, the UCU also made clear that it is not opposed to cuts in principle but wanted to be consulted.

Businesses being primed to run higher education

On February 25, in an article entitled, “Blueprint for bosses to shape degrees,” the Financial Times reported that “Employers would gain significant new powers to shape higher education degrees under a confidential blueprint circulating inside Whitehall.”

The article cited a document, produced by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, under the title “Higher Level Skills Strategy.” According to the FT, it “sets out the case for devoting the bulk of extra university funding over the next three years to degrees jointly designed and funded by employers” and states that universities should offer a range of reforms “that an employer and employee will want.”

The document continues, “We expect the great majority of this growth to be in provision that is developed with employer input—either foundation degrees [two-year vocational degrees co-designed by employers] or employer co-funded places.” The report warns that such growth will be “initially concentrated in those institutions which have shown they are able and willing to commit to working closely with employers.”

On March 6 an article in the Guardian on the governments annual higher education budget revealed that cuts were being made to the number of students allowed access to leading universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, University College London and the University of Manchester. From next term the government’s budget for “widening participation” will increase by £15 million to £364 million but according to the Guardian’s research 50 out of the 90 English universities are facing cuts in their “widening participation” budgets. Cambridge will lose 44 percent of its funding and Oxford will lose nearly 37 percent. University College London, Bristol and Manchester University will have budget cuts of between 6 and 22 percent.

Universities students face massive debt crisis

The cuts to higher education are being carried out at a time when universities have borrowed millions of pounds in order to finance construction of much needed new buildings and the upgrading of existing buildings. Steve Egan, deputy chief executive of Hefce, told the Guardian, “The level of borrowings, as compared to the level of total income, is the highest since 1997. In actual terms (that is, the amount rather than a percentage), the level of borrowings in 2005-06 was higher than ever before.”

Many universities already rely on the income from international undergraduate students, who currently account for eight percent of total university income.

The debt crisis has resulted in significant job losses. Britain’s largest university, the University of Manchester, has an operating deficit of £12.4 million. It is planning to shed 650 mostly administrative jobs through “natural wastage.” Up to 20 percent of these will be academic staff. At Sunderland University’s the deficit has increased from £1 million in 2005/06 to £4.2 million in 2006-07. As a critical part of managing the debt, universities have been forced to sell of large parts of the estate they own. The University of Manchester recently sold off the 3,600 acre Tabley House Estate in Knutsford, Cheshire, for £35 million, without which its debt levels would be far, far higher.

At the University of Sussex, management has published restructuring plans that will mean cuts in established areas of study in favour of more lucrative areas such as business and management and international security. Increasingly universities are seeking direct contracts with big business in order to finance their operations. Last September the University of Manchester announced that it was establishing a £50 million venture capital fund with a commercial partner to invest in “intellectual property” in order to facilitate bringing academic research to sell in the market place.

Tuition fees introduced by Labour are currently £3,145 for this academic year, but it is expected that a government review will recommend a further increase in the fees for 2008/09. But this is only a part of the prohibitive financial scenario facing students. Research by the Student Union found that when living costs such as rent, textbooks, utility bills and travel are added, the average cost of a three-year university degree comes to more than £45,000 in London and £39,000 outside the capital. Students are forced to take out “Student Loans,” which are to be paid back after graduation when they enter employment, leaving them saddled with tens of thousands of pounds of debt. In addition, the credit reference agency Equifax found that 83 percent of parents are footing their children’s education bill.

NUS governance review would cement Labour’s power

tim — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:03:44 +0000

That student politics can become polarised is no grand revelation; but visible to those of us who have been involved in the internal politics of the National Union of Students over the past 10 years is a fundamental rift within the political student community, of greater significance than much seen previously. In response to alleged “student apathy” within the governing bodies of Student Unions across the country, a proposed Governance Review aims (amongst many other things) to centralise authority towards the elected officers in regional SUs and towards the elected officials of the national organisation. This would be achieved most notably in the removal of compulsory elections for conference delegates (delegates would thence be selected by the SU officers) and the reduction of the conference’s powers, which would be transferred to other unelected bodies.

The proposals come from the National Executive Council and are backed by all the major members. From the NEC the concerns appear to be management related – in response to declining rates of participation in local SUs and elections. But mounting opposition to the Review has united the independent and left-of-Labour student organisations, who claim that the moves will serve to undermine their ability to significantly influence official NUS politics. With the majority of SUs around the country dominated by the monolithic Labour Students organisation, independently elected conference delegates are in many areas the only opportunity for alternative voices to make themselves heard at the conference. The planned reduction in size of the national conference, alongside an attack on its authority, would effectively shut independent and left groups out of the official decision-making process entirely, cementing the authority of Labour over NUS as a politically campaigning organisation.

The cause of non-Labour students is still far from lost. To pass constitutionally amending documents, the conference needs the support of two thirds of delegates. Due in part to marginally increased delegations from left-of-Labour organisations in recent years and the partial alliance founded by independents and student Islamic societies, non-Labour organisations have been able to carry the support of roughly a third of delegates in conferences past. The margin will be tight. But whatever the outcome, this year’s conference will mark a watershed in NUS history. Whether the NUS is to become the self-selecting and politically neutral organisation envisaged in the Governance Review, or whether non-Labour student organisations will be able to get their acts together to inflict one of the most significant defeats to the NEC in recent NUS history, is yet to be seen.

Booting out the military

JamieSW — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 17:06:59 +0000

The University College London Students’ Union (UCLU) has voted to sever all ties with the military, including banning military recruitment stalls and breaking links with the Officer Training Corps ‘which recruits up to half its number from universities up and down the country’.

The motion (.doc) stated:

“This union believes that because the British military under the Labour Government is currently engaged in an aggressive war overseas, for the union to use its resources to encourage students to join the military or participate in military recruitment activities at this time would give political and material support to the war.”

According to Indymedia,

“The Annual General Meeting had the largest attendance in UCL’s recent history with more than 325 people in attendance at the start of the meeting, making it the first UCL Union General Meeting to make the Union’s 1% quorum since 2003.”

Data compiled by the ‘Study War No More’ campaign, run by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade and the Fellowship of Reconcilliation, shows that the UCL is working on a total of 117 projects for the military worth a minimum of £5,284,072.

Tim Street has more on military involvement in British universities.

The union also voted overwhelmingly to twin UCL with the unions of the Al-Quds and Al-Azhar Universities in the West Bank and Gaza and to ‘establish an educational exchange programme between UCL students and students from the Palestinian universities’. The original motion can be viewed here (.pdf), and the two ammendments here (.doc) and here (.doc).

Student Debt: Selling Out the Next Generation

eddie — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:35:49 +0000

With student debt spiralling and higher education being reduced to a commodity, Laurie Penny calls for a change of course

University used to be about getting yourself educated. Now, if you’re lucky, it’s about getting in, grabbing the biggest, most career-oriented degree you can lay hands on, and getting out again – hopefully with your sanity intact and a few weeks’ holiday before you don a suit and start paying back your loan. Macro-capitalism has sold us out, turning education into a consumable – a privilege to be bought rather than a right to be aspired to.

Discussion of macro-capitalist policy making has to involve a considered look at where the money is and where it’s going, so let’s start there. Gordon Brown’s cabinet has recently, amid much public fanfare, pledged an extra £14 billion to be spent on primary and secondary education over the next three years, bringing the total education budget to £74 billion by 2010. This represents an annual increase of 2.5 per cent in real terms, compared with 4.4 per cent in recent years. Yes, that’s right – despite all the fuss, the rate of increased spending on education is actually slowing.

Moreover, it must be understood that £14 billion over three years, while it might sound like incredible riches, is in fact a paltry sum. Compare it to, say, the arbitrary figure of £28 billion conjured out of thin air to float Northern Rock last November. Next to this, or to the £128 billion (US$255 billion) made annually in legal tax evasion by the world’s super-rich, £14 billion is peanuts. And yet, how is this paltry sum being afforded?

It’s being afforded at the expense of a higher education system that is now almost entirely funded by its students, via top-up fees and, most recently, by Brown’s auction of the student loans book. That’s right, £6 billion – one third of the total owed by students and graduates – is to be sold to private investors. The NUS has been assured that the sale of the loans ’should not affect’ the low interest rate currently set on graduate repayments; however, the government has provided no details of what subsidies it has planned to counter commercial rates of interest. Students have every reason to worry.

As such, not only do all but the very poorest have to personally finance their higher education but the ’effectively interest-free’ loans that brought this about are now in jeopardy. All so that Brown can move some money around the already under-funded education budget rather than actually implementing any radical changes in public spending. And let’s not forget: students starting university this year are set to graduate with an average of over £15,000 worth of debt, and in some cases much more – not all of which is borrowed from the Student Loans company. To finance the increasing costs of higher education, students are becoming beholden to parents, banks and private loan providers, and working themselves into the ground outside of university hours merely to stay afloat. The net effect of this is that education has now become a commodity, and students have been transformed into consumers, entrenching social division and negating aspiration.

Recent efforts to redress the balance have been too little, too late.

’Stagnation, stagnation, stagnation’

Blair’s much-hyped goal of ‘50 per cent in higher education’ is now near to realisation. It has consistently been mistaken for a step towards higher aspirations for all; in fact, the way it has been managed makes it precisely the opposite, entrenching the stagnation of social mobility since 1970, as was recently reported by the Sutton Tust. Quite simply, the socio-economic goalposts have been moved for a generation of young people entering the workplace.

Over the past 15 years, a higher degree has become more than just a useful qualification. In the words of that noted socio-political analyst, Joe Strummer, one can no longer expect even to make tea at the BBC without a BA. A degree is increasingly a necessary entrance ticket to a certain level of employment and fiscal stability, effectively extending the mandatory education period for a large and specifically privileged social demographic: the middle classes.

After 10 years of Labour government, there is still only a 20 per cent likelihood of bright children from the poorest quarter of families going to university, a figure that rises to 80 per cent among the middle and upper-middle classes. Recent efforts to redress the balance have fallen pitifully short. According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS), the new initiative to provide limited grants of up to £2,800 per year to the very poorest students will benefit very few of those actually in need. Only the very poorest are eligible, and for those that do make it to university from households with an income under £17,500, the money is usually insufficient.

In what was billed as an effort to increase social mobility, New Labour has in fact managed to entrench the social stagnation of the Thatcher years by creating a system of mandatory, effectively self-funded higher education as an entry requirement for the middle classes. Well-meant fob-off politics – such as this year’s limited grant-scheme – have been too little, too late.

Education as a consumable

Perhaps the most damaging aspect of the escalating loans system of financing higher education is the fact that university education is seen as something that should, first and foremost, provide ’value for money’. As Albert Einstein noted in his 1949 treatise ‘On Education’, an erosion of personhood and negation of rounded education occurs when ‘an exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career. There is only one way to eliminate these grave evils … namely, a socially-funded educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.’

Students are now aware, from the moment they enter university, that they will have to earn money to pay back their borrowings for the very education that will finance those borrowings. As such, education becomes judged purely in terms of the monetary rewards it will eventually deliver. Even official press releases and loans company documents refer to a student’s degree as little more than an exciting form of ISA – an investment purely in one’s financial future, rather than in one’s personal or social future.

This, in fact, is the root of the problem. Education is not a product. It’s a process. You can pay people to teach you, yes, but you cannot pop down to your local high street and buy yourself an education. Fifty years ago, Einstein recognised that an acquisitional, fiscally-minded higher education system was a contributing factor to ‘the crippling of individuals, [which] I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil’. Students in the 21st century are increasingly treated as consumers, buying on credit their ticket into a system that will, if they’re lucky, squeeze them out the other end as products themselves, boxed up with identical gleaming CVs and desperate smiles: tagged, bagged and shipped out from the warehouse onto the screeching shop-floor of life.

Sold out by student politicians?

What’s worrying is that our own official representatives are more interested in playing the system than in challenging it. The NUS, a deeply divided but influential union, has allowed the government cumulatively to chip away at the rights of students for one reason only – namely, that the union has, for the past decade, been run by Labour-affiliated students with one eye constantly on their own futures in government. As such, the main NUS delegates have been reluctant to make waves to secure the educational rights of the next generation of British citizens. The 2006 NUS conference, for example, responding to the controversial introduction of top-up-fees, concluded that a small increase in means-tested grants would solve the problem – but this has already proven to be vastly insufficient.

There remains, however, a dedicated radical faction amongst student representatives who have continued to contest the increasing shift of higher education towards the status of an unequal service industry. One such sub-group is the student organisation Education Not for Sale (ENS).
ENS, like many on the student left, has come to the conclusion that a fully subsidised higher education system, with living grants available to all, is the only way to turn around the social stagnation brought about by the financial and schematic management of the UK university system. Sophie Buckland, ENS women’s officer and a spokesperson for the organisation, tells us: ’[Our organisation] fights for a grant high enough to live on for all students in post-16 education as part of a fully free education system – at least £120 a week. Even a minimal increase in taxation of the rich and of business would create enough funds to make this possible.’

Radical change is needed

Brown’s government has an opportunity to make university a plane of true social levelling and real educational and personal endeavour. But only if the prime minister has the courage to radically re-think his policy on education spending right across the board. Robbing University Peter to pay Primary Paul is a pitiful attempt at instigating the sort of systemic change needed.

Brown could provide the kind of higher education every young person has a right to quite easily, but only by rolling back the tax windfalls Labour has given the rich will enough public funds be generated to do so. He must invest not only in the country’s financial future, but in the social and educational legacies his government will leave to the next generation. Only radical, systemic change of the UK’s attitude towards education spending will give my young sisters’ generation the choices, in learning and in life, that every youth facing an uncertain 21st-century future deserves.

Study War No More: Military Involvement in UK Universities

JamieSW — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:17:56 +0000

Imperial College London sounds like the kind of place where you’d expect to find attitudes sympathetic to the military. London was, after all, once the capital of an empire of such size and scale – encompassing about a quarter of the world – that it required immense military might to enforce its rule. Looking at the level of military research that is being conducted by academics at Imperial and many other UK universities today, you could be excused for thinking that the empire never really went away – at least in the minds of those who seek to defend it.

In December last year, letters were sent to students, academics, staff and alumni at 26 UK universities drawing their attention to a recently published report entitled ‘Study War No More – Military Involvement in UK universities.’ The report, written by Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FoR) details the hundreds of military projects that UK universities conduct on behalf of arms companies and public bodies such as the Ministry of Defence. As one of the 26 UK universities covered by the report, letters were sent to representatives of Imperial highlighting how, between 2001 and 2006, the college conducted a minimum of 95 military projects – the 7th largest number in the UK – which netted the university at least £24 million.

The following response to this letter was received from Stephen Brown, Imperial College’s Union President:

“I am delighted that Imperial College has performed so well in yet another league table although given that we only finished 7th there is clearly still a lot of room for improvement. Several of our students are very proud of the excellent work that the College does with our industrial partners and the government to make sure that our armed forces have every possible technological advantage in what is unfortunately a dangerous world. The recent concerns raised in Parliament about the under funding of the UK Armed Forces reinforces the need for this important work to continue to make our service personnel less vulnerable as they bravely go about their jobs protecting UK subjects from those who would do us harm.”

Mr Brown needn’t worry about Imperial’s position in the league table, for the college is working hard to improve its ranking all the time. For example, in 2006, the Ministry of Defence and the US Department of Defence joined forces with Imperial to form the International Technology Alliance (ITA). According to Imperial’s website, the ITA will “undertake a research programme exploring advanced technology for secure wireless and sensor networks to support future coalition operations, over a potential 10 year period, with a value of up to $135.8 million”[1]. Other members of the consortium include Boeing and Honeywell – two of the largest arms companies in the world. Imperial’s department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering received a government grant of £1.4 million for its work on this project and there may well be more to come.

It is important to consider the actual practices of Imperial’s ‘industrial partners’ in order to appreciate the likely applications of the military projects conducted at Imperial. As noted above, Imperial works with some of the largest arms companies in the world. As well as Boeing and Honeywell, Imperial is involved in numerous projects with BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, QinetiQ and General Dynamics. As Stephen Brown points out, these companies produce equipment for the UK military, which will have been used in, amongst other places, Iraq and Afghanistan. Notably absent from Mr Brown’s account however, is a reference to the foreign markets that these companies supply through arms exports. For example, BAE Systems, the company that was British Aerospace before it became too ‘global’ for ‘British’, is the world’s fourth largest arms producer. It makes fighter aircraft, warships, tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery systems, missiles, munitions and much more.

These arms are sold indiscriminately around the world and the company thrives on insecurity. Its 2005 Annual Report candidly states that “New threats and conflict arenas are placing unprecedented demands on military forces and presenting BAE Systems with new challenges and opportunities…”. The company claims to have military customers in “some 130 countries”, with its foremost markets being the repressive Saudi Arabian regime and the US, to which BAE Systems has steadily been moving its business. Other export deals to areas of conflict and widespread human rights abuse include sub-systems for Israeli F-16 fighter aircraft and Hawk light combat aircraft to Indonesia during its repression of East Timor.

One of the larger military projects involving Imperial and BAE Systems is FLAVIIR. This is a £6.2 million, public-private funded project, running between 2004 and 2009 and involving ten universities, predominantly in their Engineering departments. According to its website, FLAVIIR will “look at technologies for future unmanned air vehicles (UAV) funded jointly by BAE Systems and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.” A recent report in The Guardian outlined just how deadly the FLAVIIR research could one day be. It describes how the FLAVIIR research is intended to develop existing UAV technology used by UK and US forces. The RAF initially plans to use the unmanned drones for reconnaissance before arming them with Hellfire missiles for ground attacks. The CIA already used similar drones last year to “target a Pakistani village where it was thought Ayman al-Zawahiri, the deputy leader of al-Qaida, was in hiding. Instead, more than 20 villagers, including five women and five children, were killed.” Unshaken by such tragedies, “British ministers and military chiefs think the drone will be the frontline attack plane in years to come.”

The military sector – both governmental and industrial – has been able to push its way into Imperial and other UK universities through funding a variety of projects, mainly involving research. By sub-contracting research to universities, which have world-class, publicly-funded staff and facilities, the military sector can keep overheads down and, in the case of military companies, profits up. The ease with which military organisations can influence university departments, through purchasing research and services and providing sponsorship, is indicative of the general trend towards commercialisation in higher education. Moreover, the hundreds of projects conducted at UK universities between 2001 and 2006 for the military sector indicate that the military has, in particular, built up strong levels of influence over science, engineering and technology departments.

Public money, mainly from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s collaborative research grants scheme, heavily subsidises many of these military projects, in particular those conducted by military companies, which contribute relatively small amounts of money. The public financing of military research makes these projects more attractive to universities, especially those suffering from funding shortfalls. Academics thus accept and actively seek out military money because they are under pressure to attract research funding to their department. Furthermore, because the university funding system has been used by the government to introduce policies which promote research with economic benefits to industry, science, engineering and technology departments’ funding options have narrowed. Academics may also be more willing to accept military funding if they do not perceive the work to be military. This may be because they don’t associate the research they are being paid to conduct with a direct military application. This is despite the fact that it is often possible to identify work which has been paid for by the military that either have very high military revenues or spend millions of pounds on military production and/ or procurement.

In spite of the Freedom of Information Act, accessing data regarding the funding of universities by the military sector (for example from university and research council websites in addition to FoI requests) is time consuming and only presents a partial picture of the actual economic relationships. Two reasons for this- apart from the fact that institutions are often not compelled to provide such information- are the need for commercial confidentiality between competing organisations (including universities) and the cloak of secrecy surrounding the military sector. Without full transparency in the future, including clear and easily accessible information concerning how public money is used to support projects conducted by the military sector, it will not be possible to accurately assess the extent of military involvement in UK universities or monitor developments and trends.

The first step towards challenging the dependence of UK universities on funding from military organisations is to ensure that information regarding this relationship is publicly available so that it may be freely discussed. Transparency can only be achieved through the use of the media, public debates, meetings and campaign groups to press for change within universities and government. Ultimately, the decision-making structures of universities and government must change if the military sector’s research agenda is to stop being pushed onto university departments and there is to be a reduction in the amount of military projects conducted at UK universities. Thankfully, there are encouraging signs that students and staff will not stand for their universities’ being turned over to the military. Campaigners have already taken part in meetings at several UK universities, including Warwick, Nottingham, UCL, LSE, Sheffield and Southampton and there are plans for many more events at other universities in the future. One would hope that Imperial College and its Union President will continue to take part in this debate, for it is clear that students and staff want to discuss current levels of university participation in military projects given the urgent challenges of climate change, resource conflict, nuclear proliferation and economic inequalities that the UK and the world are currently facing.

1. http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummar…