These are notes from a talk Rowan McArthur gave on behalf of the International Socialists at the Socialism 2012 conference in Wellington last weekend. Join the speak-out this Friday in solidarity with the activists arrested at the Auckland demonstrations - meet outside the Student Union at 1pm. The Tertiary Education Union Auckland University branch have put out a statement you can read here.
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I'm relieved that I am here speaking on the subject of
university and education in a capitalist system because two days ago I was so
swamped with essays I wasn’t sure if I would be able to do it. I know I’m not
the only one who feels overwhelmed by the workloads and expectations put on us
at uni – and at the same time I think we are actually doing more but learning
less than students 30 years ago. But more than this we now have to pay ever
increasing amounts to be stressed out, get shittier education and if you are
unlucky enough to be in an unprofitable department you may be half way through
your degree just to be told your subject no longer exist. If it isn’t making
money then is it really worth learning? This is the reality of the degree
factory.
But even though students are already getting a raw deal it
doesn’t end there. As you all know capitalism is once again in crisis and as
per usual students all around the world are in the firing line. We are used as
an excuse for the failings of capitalism; we are the ones putting a strain on
the economy with our extortionate demands for a so called ‘affordable’
education. We are the ones who are failing to pay back our student loans in a
‘reasonable’ amount of time. We are greedy because we see education as a right
not a privilege. But we students haven’t been taking this lying down. Inspired
by the wider working class resistance in Greece, worldwide occupations,
revolutions in the Middle East and the countless acts of resistance, students
are also on the frontlines calling for revolution and real change. The past few
years we have watched on as students march in mass protests against fee rises
in the UK, have running streets battles with police in Chile and in the last
few days we’ve seen massive protest in Montreal.
So what is the situation in Aotearoa? The Students here have
seen similar neoliberal attacks on their education, there have been wind backs
of many concessions won by students in previous decades. Prior to 1990,
students paid minimal fees for education. The government set student fee was
increased to NZ$1,300 in 1991, but in 1992 tertiary institutions were given the
autonomy to set their own fees with no regulation. Since then, students have
increasingly borne more of the cost towards public tertiary education in New
Zealand, amounting to nothing short of the increased privatisation of our
public tertiary education system. User-pays public education, and the notion
that the student is a consumer and education a product, is the capitalist logic
which comes about in crisis, leading to increasing personal debt. Last year
university fees rose by 3.6% on top of the increases since 1990. The New
Zealand Union of students association released a statement in April stating 15
per cent of the New Zealand university student population were suffering
"absolute financial distress". That’s almost 70,000 students if you
base it off the 2010 student numbers. In Dunedin the student trips to the food
bank have increased massively, due to the ever increasing cost of living – rent
has almost doubled in the past 10 years not to mention food. This financial
oppression of Dunedin students, coupled with the atomisation and
individualisation of students, is expressed often erratically,
like at the Hyde street party this year where over a third of the student
population turned out and flats were smashed up, including a caved in roof, in
2006 and 2007 Dunedin saw this expressed in the form of riots and battles with
the police. But this poverty isn’t
ending after study - findings from a Ministry of Education survey released in
2011 showed that 39% of graduates did not earn any sum of money for at least
one of the first four years after graduating. 11% did not earn any money at all
during that four-year period. Overall, the proportion of young people who are
not employed but are engaged in study has increased since the downturn. Youth
engagement in study rose from 34.2% in 2009 to 36.4% in 2011. That’s an
increase in the numbers of student which means increase in student poverty and
an increase in private debt too.
The current budget isn’t making this any better. The Budget
2012 student support package is underpinned by the principle that students
should make a greater contribution to their tertiary education – as quoted from
a pro national website. Basically what the budget states is as a student you
leave university with massive debt in a time of high youth and national
unemployment and then have to pay more back if you do eventually get a job and
if you don’t you get tracked by a high tech data system forcing you to pay. If
you are unlucky enough to continue into postgrad you can get no living
allowance increasing your debt even further.
We are the indebted
generation!
So why is it so important that we fight against the current
budget, fee rises and other attacks on students. There is a lot more at stake
than us just not wanting to pay. Education is a right not a privilege. And with
ever increasing university fees, an emphasis on profitable departments
especially in the sciences, the current state of capitalism and pushes to pay
back loans faster this right has been taken away for many people, epically from
the working class and disenfranchised. This is precisely why we need to fight
back. This is precisely why students are fighting back in all the major centres
in Aotearoa. Last night we saw 43 out of 400 odd students arrested in protest
against the budget in Auckland. Last year in response to OUSA calling students
out to protest VSM over 500 turned up in 24 hours’ notice to harass John Key. The
creation of student activist groups like WATU are an attempt to radicalise the
campuses. Otago campus is yet to have a real student radicalisation but the
overnight show of 500 people and the national student uprisings goes to shows
the volatility of the campus.
