Students, educators and communities must unite for education and tell the Government we come before profits and markets

Students and staff members in higher and further education are facing the most serious challenge to the future of our sector in a generation. Unlimited fees, private businesses entering and exiting the sector, job losses, and the closing down of institutions are all real threats we will need to face together as a movement in the year ahead. It is difficult to overstate the gravity of the situation, and the urgency for all of us to take action, both at a local and a national level.

Students have faced relentless attacks over the past six years - from the trebling of tuition fees to the scrapping of the education maintenance allowance, from the scrapping of tier 4 ‘post-study work’ visas that enabled international students to work in the UK for a short period following their studies to the introduction of fees and loans for students aged 24 and over who want to return to take their GCSEs and A-levels. And, of course, the scrapping of maintenance grants for the poorest students, only this year.

And not content with that track record, the Government is continuing at a pace with a raft of ideologically driven experiments, crow-barring the market ever more deeply into an education system that doesn’t want it, and for which it can never work.

The Government is pushing ahead with the Higher Education and Research Bill which appears under the guise of “furthering the student interest.” Instead, though, it would open up the higher education system to a wide range of profit-making providers, in the spirit of the notorious Trump University experiment in the US, opening the door for universities to raise their fees even higher above an already eye-watering £9,000 a year.

In further education, which has seen years of cut backs to the point where colleges are very much on their knees, the Government is now leading an “area review process” - Orwellian doublespeak for an agenda that will see the closure of local colleges, and the subsequent loss of local education opportunities and local jobs. No thought of what this means for local communities, or for students, who, despite the lack of financial support available, will have to find a way to cover the costs to travel to the remaining regional colleges, or, otherwise, give up on the prospect of further study or training, and instead try to enter the far-from-attractive youth job market.

It’s not a good time to be a student in the UK. And with deeply worrying, ferociously growing racism and xenophobia - particularly following the noxious Brexit campaign and referendum reaction - it can be a particularly inhospitable time for black and minority ethnic communities and international students in the UK.

Students and lecturers are clear that enough is enough. We can’t accept the degradation of our education system, as the door gets closed to ever more people, and our campuses and communities risk becoming less open and less welcoming.

That is why, on Saturday 19 November, NUS and the lecturers’ union UCU will be coordinating what is anticipated to be the biggest education demonstration in over five years, as we stand united for education. We will also see coordinated international demonstrations taking place that month as we, in the UK, stand together with others internationally to demand a better, more positive future.

With so many challenges facing us, there has never been a more important time for us to come together and make the positive case for our futures. We can’t allow others to dictate the terms of our lives, and we can’t allow negativity and fear to win out. This is a time for students and staff members to come together, across trade unions and across institutions, across FE and HE, across regions and nations, to build a large, united, and formidable movement which puts forward our vision for a free and liberated society, and has the confidence to say that students and staff members should come before profits and markets.

I hope you will be able to join us in November as we come together and stand up for the future we all need and deserve.