Maintenance grants: Warwick for Free Education announces demonstration to pressure Government into reversing cuts

If the Conservatives thought they had the final say in the controversial move to axe maintenance grants for more than half a million of England's poorest students, they can think again as a protest against the cut looks set to take place later this month.

Organised by Warwick for Free Education (WFFE), the demonstration to save the grants will call on the University of Warwick to publicly condemn the Government's move which was “forced undemocratically” through a backroom parliamentary committee most people had never even heard of.

Centred on a set of demands, the rally will primarily urge the institution to lobby the elite university Russell Group - which Warwick is a part of - to adopt a position of opposition and pressure the Government into reversing the cuts.

The Russell Group, say the protest’s organisers, is supporting some of the “worst aspects of government policy,” including the set of higher education reforms proposed in the recent Green Paper: “These proposals would amount to nothing less than the full marketisation of education, and the cuts to maintenance grants are just one element of this programme.”

Other demands include that Warwick undertakes minimum compliance with the Government’s Prevent agenda - supporting University College Union’s (UCU) boycott call - and implements full transparency with respect to all interactions with Prevent, and that university management also lobbies Russell Group institutions to remain under the Freedom of Information Act, all the while advocating the Act’s extension to private universities.

In a statement from WFFE, the group said it forced concessions from management after hosting a ‘noise demo’ in the finance office on 4 February. Coupled with sit-in action, WFFE said it forced Warwick’s new vice-chancellor, Stuart Croft, to meet with demonstrators and discuss their demands.

In their statement, WFFE described the concessions made in that meeting as being “small but significant victories for our direct action, as well as a foundation upon which we can build for further change.” The students added how they also made clear that none of their demands were met outright and pledged to continue to protest, with the possibility of escalation, if management was felt to be “reneging on any of their promises.”

In a statement regarding the upcoming rally, WFFE said: “Now we must maintain that momentum and pressure, call on the university to publicly condemn the cuts to maintenance grants, and unite to combat the attacks on our education.”