TODAY will see the second wave of student anger against the Tory government’s decision to treble tuition fees from around £3,000 to £9,000 a year, which is supported by their Lib Dem coalition partners.
The plan to raise tuition fees stems directly from the economic crisis of capitalism and the determination of the ruling class to unleash the full force of this crisis on the working class, the middle class and above all the youth.
During the general election, the Liberal Democrats unashamedly campaigned against tuition fees in order to win student votes, and immediately junked the policy in favour of forming a crisis government with the Tories to defend British capitalism and impose the savage cuts demanded by the banks and big business and wind up the Welfare State.
Today’s Day of Action is expected to see demonstrations, walk-outs and occupations by students at universities, schools and colleges all over the country, supported by teachers and staff.
Lib Dem MPs’ offices are expected to be the target of many demonstrations. Several universities and colleges, like SOAS and Manchester Met, have already been occupied.
The plan for £9,000 fees is now being put before parliament, and students are expected to demonstrate outside in another show of anger, vowing to continue their fight until this extortion plan is withdrawn.
The Tories have made it clear to universities that there will be no more funding from the government: they will have to rely on tuition fees to keep going, forcing a wave of university closures.
Similarly, Further Education colleges will also shut as the government abolishes the means-tested Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) of up to £30 a week for 16-19 year-olds studying for their A-levels and other qualifications.
Adult Education is also to be wound up. All that will be left is a handful of elite universities run as businesses, educating just the sons and daughters of the very rich.
It is part and parcel of the savage attack that has been unleashed by this government on every pillar of the Welfare State, from council housing, to the NHS, social security benefits and schools.
The massive turnout of up to 100,000 students for the November 10 NUS national demonstration in London showed the level of anger that exists amongst a generation of young people who are already deep in debt as the result of more than a decade of tuition fees, which started off at £1,000 and were then trebled to £3,000 under the Blair government.
The right-wing National Union of Students leaders accepted the introduction of student loans and tuition fees, refusing to mobilise students with the working class to stop them, and never even called a single demonstration against the government’s attacks during the last few years.
The present NUS leaders are now riding a tidal wave of anger which is about to overflow, from students, parents, teachers and the whole working class.
The current NUS leadership are no different from their predecessors. Whilst they talk about the NUS being in the ‘fight of our lives’, they have already given their support for a graduate tax or ‘graduate contribution’ – which still makes students, when they graduate, pay for their education.
Whilst the NUS leaders pleaded with the coalition not to put the fees up so much, they also attacked their own members after the demonstration on November 10, whose anger over the huge fees hike erupted in an attack on the Tory party offices in Millbank Tower.
But the real criminals are the government, who are driving up fees which will rob a generation of youth completely of the right to education and jobs, and put them to work on unpaid slave labour schemes instead.
In contrast, the recent Young Socialists March for Jobs and Free State Education, from Manchester to London, led the way for students everywhere.
The YS march demanded that education must be free and that all tuition fees must end now, and that the only way to achieve this is by the working class bringing this government down now and replacing it with a workers government and socialism.
This received massive support all over the country. We therefore urge all students who want to see an end to fees to join the Workers Revolutionary Party and the Young Socialists and build the revolutionary leadership for students now.
