New protests planned over HE cuts

by Caroline Naharnowicz

New occupations and protests, due to take place within the next few weeks, are being planned by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts.

Students recently gathered in the meeting rooms at the Bloomsbury theatre for the group's first London meeting, in order to discuss the ongoing campaigns in universities such as the University of the Arts London, Oxford, Queen Mary, Westminster, and Sussex.

The event was organised following a National Student Convention held on February 6 where regional updates were given and courses of action could be planned.

It was emphasised at the meeting how the language departments are the most affected by the on-going cuts at each universities, closely followed by humanities and philosophy.

Michael Chessum, student at University College London (UCL) said: “The modern languages department at UCL has announced massive restructuring which basically means merging all the departments into a division.

"What we are thinking of doing is building a fortnight of action over the next two weeks, including a demonstration in the quad of UCL on March 3.”

Cuts across England

It was also highlighted in the meeting that several universities will be holding a day of action on March 3 or 4, while at some universities such as Oxford, no direct action can be taken until the announcements of cuts have been made.

For the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), cuts have not been initiated but have been replaced with ‘rationalisations’.

This means that courses are being ‘rationalised’ depending on how many students are applying.

For example, a course with less than 15 students will be transformed into something else or merged with another course.

Mas Naina at SOAS said: “It means that all the language courses will cease to exist. They have even thought about making Hindi and Urdu one course.”

SOAS faces other major issues, such as the long-standing campaign by tutors who are not paid for their office hours.

Voluntary office hours have meant that many teachers have already gone on strike.

Clare Soloman, of SOAS, said: “As a result of this, all second and third year courses in the arts, humanities, and languages and cultures departments at SOAS this year have no tutorials whatsoever.”

Student's Union

Support from Student's Union (SU) has been mixed across all universities.

While Sussex College has received full support from their SU, Kings College is struggling to get past the smaller things that are affecting their campaign.

Mark Boothroyd at Kings College said: “The president of the SU is saying that he doesn’t really want to be part of a ‘no cuts’ campaign - he would prefer a campaign like ‘more consultation at Kings’.

"He’s not against the campaign, he just doesn’t want to go under that slogan. He’s neutral which basically means he's siding with management on this by not organising any resistance.”

A similar feeling about the student union was felt by London College of Communication student, Louis Hartnol, who is also running for the SU presidency at UAL in this year's elections.

Hartnol said: “The SU have been absolutely awful in supporting us and have just bowed down to management.

"In light of that, we’ve proposed a motion for the SU in the referendum which will be voted for by all the students and if passed it means that it will move the SU’s opinion slightly more in line with ours.”

The group's next meeting will be held on February 27.