Students in Auckland to stage rally

On Monday 26th September 2011, in coordination with universities around the country, and with the support of the Auckland University Students’ Association (AUSA) and the Tertiary Education Union (TEU), We Are the University (Auckland) will hold a rally to oppose new policies affecting staff and student conditions.

This rally follows the Nationwide Day of Student Action on the 14th September that saw students across the country undertake critical discussion and action in response to government policies on education. In Auckland three people were arrested and two trespassed from the university for taking part in peaceful protests.

The rally aims to demonstrate student opposition to three key issues: the Voluntary Student Membership (VSM) bill, due to pass its third reading on the 28th September, the erosion of democracy on campus and the regular hiking of student fees.

We Are the University spokesperson Guy Cohen says, “These measures threaten the university as a space for free engagement with people and ideas. The VSM bill signals the latest in a larger pattern of destructive education policy that will cripple student unions and services and decimate campus culture across the country.”

Universities are gradually being streamlined to prioritise a business model over providing a quality education service. This is demonstrated most recently through the protracted industrial dispute between staff and management over key working conditions.

“The policies of universities nationwide are being based increasingly upon ideologies that pursue profit over the larger-picture value of having a populace with the right to education,” says Guy Cohen. “This is unbelievably short-sighted. We can see that the result of a profit-orientated qualification industry is to burden students with debt and further embed the idea of education as a means to wealth rather than as a contribution to our society.”

A supporter of the rally, Jai Bentley-Payne, says, “This is our university, and a lot of us pay a lot of money to be here. It’s supposedly an open space for ideas, where we’re able to share our creative thoughts on what the university should be. The democratic process in this university and in other universities around the country is under sustained attack.”

ENDS.

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