Protest against education cuts 18 March

100,000 will be excluded yet again from University this September, not because they do not have the abilities, but because this government has capped university places. Barred from education and with few jobs on offer, this is New Labour throwing many more of our generation onto the scrapheap.

On 18 March, the university funding body HEFCE will announce further cuts in education across England. So even if you make it there, you will still face a worse education and get a huge debt to pay off!

Youth Fight for Jobs, together with Socialist Students, is protesting this at colleges and universities everywhere. For full details see here.

In London we will be handing in an open reply to David Lammy, Universities Minister, who attempted to justify the governments cuts. Our reply can be found below.

Dear David Lammy MP,

Thank you for your response (5 February) to the 10,000 petition signatures handed in to Downing Street on 28 November 2009 by Youth Fight for Jobs members as part of our demonstration.

We are far from 'assured' by your commitment to "widening participation in HE [higher education] for economic need and for social justice". The evidence suggests that you and the government are more committed to huge cuts in education, to student debt, and only allowing the wealthiest in society a say in the future of HE and education as a whole.

You mention the government's 'independent review' of Higher Education Funding, "chaired by Lord Browne of Madingley". Browne, a boss at BP after its privatisation, left the company (under allegations of corruption) with a £5 million payoff and a £21 million pension pot. The so-called independent board also includes leading bankers, former advisers to Tony Blair and advocates of higher fees.

The review board does not include representatives of students, education trade unions, parents or any other group affected by its recommendations. Surely these groups are better qualified to decide how education should be run? The current review should be scrapped and replaced on a genuinely independent and democratic basis.

Your letter refers to the 'relatively modest' reductions in HE funding planned in the next few years. Out of £12 billion state funding, a horrendous £2.5 billion worth of cuts are expected. Leeds University UCU members estimate that this cut will mean 700 equivalent full time jobs will be lost at their university alone. The destruction of entire departments, courses and services in universities across the country is posed. We say no to cuts in HE funding and no to increased fees.

You put forward the idea that graduates should bear some of the costs for HE funding. Youth Fight for Jobs is not arguing for the abolition of income taxes, which is how working class people contribute to higher education funding. But big business and the very richest should pay proportionately more tax "in the light of the significant benefits to them" of an educated workforce.

Instead New Labour has reduced corporation tax. The PCS civil servants union estimates that tax avoidance, primarily by the wealthy, costs the public purse around £100 billion every year. Banks, including those the government bailed out, offered bonuses worth an estimated £60 billion. The independent review board's own Peter Sands, Standard Chartered Bank CEO, was offered a bonus of £2.1 million.

Instead of recouping money from them this year your government will bar the doors of university to tens of thousands of young people on the grounds that there is not enough funding.

During a recession more people try to enter education, be that FE or HE, to train or retrain and avoid the dole queues. A government that was serious about providing a future for a generation of young people would prioritise spending on education and job provision. Clearly you are not.

The huge cuts planned throughout the education sector will mean either cuts in student places, or a huge deterioration in the quality of education on offer to students, or most likely both.

Our petition had two main demands. One was for free education. The second was for real jobs. We call for a job creation programme to offer young people a chance to work and provide essential public services. This question was not addressed by your reply.

Ben Robinson, Youth Fight for Jobs national chair

For David Lammy's original letter, see here.

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