Students occupy University of Sheffield Auditorium

[editor]

Just got sent this:

A group of University of Sheffield students are occupying a lecture theatre in the University since early on this afternoon to resist the current attack on Higher Education and to prove another educational model is possible.

The activists have reassured students at the University that their learning will not be disrupted and, during lectures, they will sit to the side.

Demaine Boocock, one of the students taking part in the action, said: “Over the last few years we've seen increasing tuition fees, the end of all grants, and the dismembering of the public university, all of which acts toward treating students as consumers.

“Employability is now at the forefront of our education and we have become passive recipients of information, rather than producers of knowledge.

“Apart from undermining the value of genuine learning, this new model is destroying critical discussion in universities, which is at the core part of a healthy educational system.

“Through our occupation, we aim to release an alternative. Rather than shutting down a lecture theatre, we seek to transform it into what it should be: a space for critical discussion.”

Minesh Parekh, the Education Officer at the University’s Students’ Union, is supporting the occupation. He said: “I'm supporting this protest against the ongoing assault to higher education because we're currently suffering the most severe threats to universities in a generation.

“It's great to see students resisting this and creating an alternative model by reclaiming the university and its purpose: to be transformative as a site of learning and discovery.”

During the free periods in the lecture theatre in the Richard Roberts building, on Brook Hill, the students will be organising discussions about topics ranging from climate change to what students want to change about their education.

These discussions are open to everyone and refreshments will be available.

The students are representing the Free University of Sheffield, a group which was behind the occupation of the University’s restaurant Inox Dine in December 2014. They also occupied Nick Clegg’s office briefly last year in the run up of the election.

The organisation, which fights for free education and against the privatisation of public services, aims to open learning spaces in the University of Sheffield so that people from all walks of life can come together as equals and share skills, resources and ideas.

All of their actions have been peaceful and none of them has led to any arrests.

 

[brogdale]

All power to their elbow, and let's hope such sentiments/action can spread.
Unfortunately, I suspect that the authorities will eventually adopt the response seen at other such actions (like Sussex) and attempt to pursue participants through the legal system.

 

[J Ed]

Owen Jones was speaking there a few hours after the occupation started, I wonder if he visited it!

 

[LeslieB]

I have to ask, what are they proposing instead? There was once an era of truly free education, but far, far fewer people went to uni than now.

 

[stethoscope]

The privatisation of higher ed, and the turning of students into fee paying customers is a pretty sound tactic to reduce protest and dissent from students.

Of course, there are plenty of students who have strong left politics and get involved in protest/actions, but the sort of money that students now have to pay for their education (and how having a degree seems to be almost standard for any job), in addition to the heavyhandedness now seen by Universities using private security, etc. I think will mean they'll be increasingly unlikely to risk any of their future through involvement in direct actions and protest.

 

[brogdale]

I have to ask, what are they proposing instead? There was once an era of truly free education, but far, far fewer people went to uni than now.

There is no such thing as 'free education'; the point at issue is who pays? We now have a system in which the state has transferred the entire burden onto those being educated in HE, allowing capital to evade any contribution towards the investment that it exploits to accumulate wealth.

 

[LeslieB]

There is no such thing as 'free education';the point at issue is who pays? .

Correct of course. I should have said free at the point of use to the student- ie totally funded by taxation like the NHS still (mostly) is.

 

[brogdale]

Correct of course. I should have said free at the point of use to the student- ie totally funded by taxation like the NHS still (mostly) is.

So, you've answered your own question, above. Almost like you knew already.

 

[LeslieB]

So, you've answered your own question, above. Almost like you knew already.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you seriously suggesting we could fund a fully free HE system, with full grants etc, like we had before 1990, purely from taxes? On the scale of higher education we have today, I can't see it happening I'm afraid.

 

[brogdale]

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you seriously suggesting we could fund a fully free HE system, with full grants etc, like we had before 1990, purely from taxes? On the scale of higher education we have today, I can't see it happening I'm afraid.

How much would that cost?

 

[Pickman's model]

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you seriously suggesting we could fund a fully free HE system, with full grants etc, like we had before 1990, purely from taxes? On the scale of higher education we have today, I can't see it happening I'm afraid.

if it was free there would be no need to fund it as it would be er free.

 

[Pickman's model]

Correct of course. I should have said free at the point of use to the student- ie totally funded by taxation like the NHS still (mostly) is.

albert einstein was of course correct when he said the difference between genius and stupidity was genius having its limits. what an absolutely unbelievably stupid post this is ^^. the fucking point about the privatisation of the nhs is that public money goes to private companies for doing something previously done by 'the state': it's not that privatisation of the nhs means an influx of private money, it's money from taxpayers going to fucking fat cats.

 

[kabbes]

Somehow, we can afford to tax corporations half as much as in France (UK: 20% at the moment, but reducing to 19% in 2017 and 18% in 2020. France: 36.6% in excess of €3.5m).

So it's all just a matter of where you spend your money, isn't it? Apparently our best use for it is to give it back to shareholders.

 

[brogdale]

Somehow, we can afford to tax corporations half as much as in France (UK: 20% at the moment, but reducing to 19% in 2017 and 18% in 2020. France: 36.6% in excess of €3.5m).

So it's all just a matter of where you spend your money, isn't it? Apparently our best use for it is to give it back to shareholders.

Well quite, before the imposition of the higher fees, the state was spending about £8bn pa on state subsidised HE. That sounds about like the sort of figure of evaded tax (pa) for companies such as Google.

 

[kabbes]

Avoided tax, rather than evaded. But yes.

And that avoidance you mention is just on the firms that avoid even our meager 20%. What about those that are actually paying their 20%... but as opposed to France's 36%?

HSBC's profit in 2015 was £4bn -- that means it (should have) paid £0.8bn here but in France it would be paying more like £1.5bn. And soon the figure here will drop still further. That's what we're spending our money on -- subsidies for large corporations. Corporations who will then get the benefit of these graduate's education, by the way, which they haven't had to pay for at all.

 

[LeslieB]

How much would that cost?

OK, I'll take a pot shot at that.

According to Home - HESA - Higher Education Statistics Agency there are around 1.5 million full time undergrads in the UK of which (scroll down the table) around 1.3 million are home students. So tution fees are currently £9000 a year, so it's a simple multiplication sum to get a figure of 11.7 billion pounds a year . Can some kind soul check I've got the decimal point in the right place?

If you were also to provide maintainance grant funding, that would nearly double that figure. The current maintance loan is £8,200 a year which would cost another 10.6 billion a year if it were converted into a non repayable grant.

So I would estimate a cost somewhere north of 20 billion a year for a full tuition fee and maintance loan package

That is no small beer by any standards!

 

[kabbes]

OK, I'll take a pot shot at that.

According to Home - HESA - Higher Education Statistics Agency there are around 1.5 million full time undergrads in the UK of which (scroll down the table) around 1.3 million are home students. So tution fees are currently £9000 a year, so it's a simple multiplication sum to get a figure of 11.7 billion pounds a year. Can some kind soul check I've got the decimal point in the right place?

If you were also to provide maintainance grant funding, that would nearly double that figure. The current maintance loan is £8,200 a year which would cost another 10.6 billion a year.

So I would estimate a cost somewhere north of 20 billion a year for a full tuition fee and maintance loan package

That is no small beer by any standards!

It's infrastructure cost. We spend £4bn a year maintaining our roads, for example. It's not spending, it's investing for the future. Nobody is saying that all roads should have a toll booth, but that's exactly the narrative that has been established for higher education.

 

[LeslieB]

Nobody is saying that all roads should have a toll booth,

But all roads *do* have a toll booth, in effect. It is called fuel duty, and the only people who get to avoid it are those wealthy enough to afford an electric car......

 

[kabbes]

But all roads *do* have a toll booth, in effect. It is called fuel duty, and the only people who get to avoid it are those wealthy enough to afford an electric car......

Well that's not correct at all. Fuel duty goes into general taxation, it isn't ring fenced for roads.

Just like the income tax of graduates goes into general taxation...

 

[brogdale]

But all roads *do* have a toll booth, in effect. It is called fuel duty, and the only people who get to avoid it are those wealthy enough to afford an electric car......

You realise you're contradicting yourself, don't you?

 

[LeslieB]

You realise you're contradicting yourself, don't you?

I'm not sure I am.

 

[brogdale]

I'm not sure I am.

I'm sure that you were. Provision from general taxation rather than individual payment.

 

[LeslieB]

Look, you've got more chance of air traffic control for pigs than getting an end to tuition fees and the return of grants. The only way it would be remotely affordable is if you reduce student numbers to somewhere near the levels of thirty years ago, and that ain't going to happen.

 

[kabbes]

Look, you've got more chance of air traffic control for pigs than getting an end to tuition fees and the return of grants. The only way it would be remotely affordable is if you reduce student numbers to somewhere near the levels of thirty years ago, and that ain't going to happen.

Either that, or we successfully change the narrative so that it becomes inevitable. Which is how all change happens.

 

[LeslieB]

Either that, or we successfully change the narrative so that it becomes inevitable. Which is how all change happens.

Luckily the country isn't in trillions of pounds of debt, and can easily afford it.

Oh, wait......

 

[kabbes]

Luckily the country isn't in trillions of pounds of debt, and can easily afford it.

Oh, wait......

So how come it can afford a 2% drop in the corporation tax rate? That means it will lose 10% of all its corporation tax, i.e. about £4bn. Why can the country afford to lose £4bn?

 

[brogdale]

Look, you've got more chance of air traffic control for pigs than getting an end to tuition fees and the return of grants. The only way it would be remotely affordable is if you reduce student numbers to somewhere near the levels of thirty years ago, and that ain't going to happen.

"Look"; usually the signal of a conservative at the limit of their capacity to argue.

 

[LeslieB]

"Look"; usually the signal of a conservative at the limit of their capacity to argue.

How's the weather up there in cloud cuckoo land

 

[Ungrateful]

Correct of course. I should have said free at the point of use to the student- ie totally funded by taxation like the NHS still (mostly) is.

It's not true that either someone has to pay or the state has to pay. Some education is entirely free and largely outside of commercial pressures - and is not state-funded. From workers' Libraries (which existed before trade unions), reading circles and today's book groups, free online MOOCS, autonomous learning, to the informal face-to-face and passing on of information. Even the discussions on online discussion boards can be a form of education... hell, I learn a lot from reading posts on Urban 75 (though mostly about cats, the illiteracy of tattoo artists and which poster has nice norks).

 

[LeslieB]

So how come it can afford a 2% drop in the corporation tax rate? That means it will lose 10% of all its corporation tax, i.e. about £4bn. Why can the country afford to lose £4bn?

You'd need to ask Georgie boy Osborne that, but I assume he is expecting a Laffer Curve effect with more companies locating here and more jobs being created leading to a rise in total corporation tax take.

I'm not saying I agree with that, but I would expect that is his main motivation........