#17 SEPT2012 theoccupiedtimes.com | @OccupiedTimes Editorial Humans are innately inquisitive. Curious about to provide a service to paying parents (who expect This is a far cry from what education has been, the world around us, we yearn to explore and, by a return on their “investment”). In any dispute, the and could be, if it was genuinely free. Universities extension, to learn. We now live in an information manager will usually sacrifice the teacher at the were set up to foster critical thinking and learning age, something to be celebrated. Instead, what is altar of political expediency. After all, the customer in arts and sciences, and have been at the forefront spreading isn’t free education and the ideals behind is always right. of research and analysis. The problem is that fees, open access for all, but monopoly and privatisation. Rational Choice Theory is based on the debt and elitism further cement class stratification. Academic research is locked away in expensive assumption that consumers have equal access Social mobility is a chimera unless there is genuine journals, libraries are closing down, and the UK’s to the necessary information to make ‘rational’ freedom to participate, which is impossible so long education landscape is scarred by a deepening decisions. This is a sham, where the less educated as money, rather than people’s thirst for knowledge, chasm separating those who can afford to learn from are disadvantaged. As with hospitals, people don’t is the deciding factor. those made to feel that education is not for them; want choice when it comes to secondary schools (as Class discord is deeply entrenched in Britain. whether financially or socially. can be seen with the poor take-up of Michael Gove’s Some traditionally working class families will have The problem resides in the cultural worth we “Free Schools” initiative.) What most people want consecutive generations who have grown to resent attribute to learning, coupled with the interference are free, quality public services, in their locality. or distrust the education system. This becomes of political and economic powers seeking to control At University, neoliberal policies have recast more apparent at secondary school when the idea and commodify. We should not ignore, nor think it the role of the student as a consumer. It is they who of community starts to fracture. Classrooms become a problem, that many choose not to continue formal must insist that the university provides a ‘product’ more polarised as children begin to internalise their education, and instead find jobs or specialised that is fit for purpose, quoting consumer rights ‘assigned’ social roles. Disadvantaged kids are not vocations. The problem arises when they find legislation in the faculty office when they feel the really ‘disappointing’ teachers, they are merely acting that the ‘lack’ of formal qualifications harms their service being offered isn’t as advertised. out the roles we expect them to play. Society hasn’t prospects of gaining employment. Many young It is important to highlight that what has happened fulfilled its part of the bargain (the “social contract”). people will find themselves on the dole or in one of isn’t as binary as privatisation vs. public sector (a line Everyone can see that problems exist in state the million call centre jobs around Britain. Millions now perpetually blurred by the ubiquity of “public/ schools. The Right likes to argue that this is a more will enter the swelling ranks of the precariat private partnerships”). The NHS, the BBC and state problem intrinsic to state schooling when in fact, as a broken political economy fails to provide schooling are still, to all intents and purposes, in the the problems are inequality and class division. The employment, fighting instead for its own survival at public realm, but their public service ethos has been social problems affecting large numbers of children, the expense of the people. corroded. Author John Lanchester describes this even before they pass through the school gates, Too many schools are run like businesses. as, “the hegemony of economic, or quasi-economic, are complex and widespread: addiction, family From above, the managerial classes pose as sitting thinking. [whereby] The economic metaphor came to breakdown, mental illness, childhood obesity, judges of teachers’ performances, ‘assessing’ be applied to every aspect of modern life, especially teenage pregnancy, etc. As Mark Fisher writes in them via the arbitrary ticking of boxes that will the areas where it simply didn’t belong”. He goes on to Capitalist Realism: “It is not an exaggeration to say ultimately determine their future. Modern schools write, “There was a kind of reverse takeover, in which that being a teenager in late capitalist Britain is are about exam results, inspections, league tables, City values came to dominate the whole of British life”. now close to being reclassified as a sickness.” But it and state-supported corporate academies keen to This is true in education as much as anywhere. doesn’t have to be this way. churn out their next generation of employees. The Peter Mandelson always talked of disciplining University remains free in many countries: not very process of learning is oackaged as a product young people to meet the demands of the global just in wealthy Scandinavia but also places like for parents to purchase - some through private fees, marketplace and the Coalition’s message was loud Argentina who have a far lower GDP than Britain. others through moving house to be in the catchment and clear when they continued financing science In Norway, free universities are still seen as a area of excelling schools. and technology from the public purse but removed key cornerstone of their more egalitarian society This brave new world has undermined the role all taxpayer funding from the arts and humanities. and there, as in Brazil, free public universities are of the classroom teacher: no longer encouraged to For them, universities exist to oil the wheels of considered better than private establishments. prioritise the sharing of knowledge or dedicate time growth and thus knowing your history or cultivating Cuba spends more than double of its central the needs of each individual, teachers are compelled a knowledge of art are regarded as luxuries. budget on education compared to the UK (10% vs. 4%). It is free at every level and devoid of market interference. Education is valued, and social attitudes are very different from the UK’s offensive mantra of “those that can’t, teach’’. Access to education for all CONTENTS and academic-vocational cooperation are promoted, PAGES/ 01 COVER ensuring that universities stay connected to the rest of 02 EDITORIAL society. The Cuban system also boasts a high teacher- 03 NEWS to-pupil ratio, rigorous teacher training, and a healthy 04 INTERNATIONAL gender mix across all disciplines. The reasonable 06 ENVIRONMENT 10 EDUCATION & ACTIVISM assumption to draw is that by keeping education a free 14 NUCLEAR POWER and shared resource, the pursuit of knowledge and a 15 ACTIVISM culture of learning become widely valued and serve to 16 THE IRREVERENT REVEREND NEMU benefit society as a whole. Education is a basic right, ON THE SOAPBOX 17 debt shouldn’t even come into it. 18 FUN STUFF 20 PLACARD To offer a vision of one possible future: US student debt has ballooned by 511% since 1999, CREDITS a growth rate twice that of housing-related debt. EDITORIAL/ The student debt market is big business for Wall Hannah Borno Street, where it is packaged up and traded as Jonni Brown Sara Cameron asset-backed securities (sound familiar?). The Ragnhild Freng Dale parasitic failed wizards of global finance continue Jack Dean to accumulate wealth not through their self- Martin Eiermann proclaimed superior talents but off the back of our Emma Fordham mortgages, our illegitimate student debt. For how Flaminia Giambalvo Mark Kauri long will we allow this? 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On the 4th anniversary she saw 51 year old Freydoon Baluch wrestled to the ground and of his death, over 200 people attended the Sean Rigg Public knocked unconscious by police officers outside the Ritzy cinema Memorial held at Lambeth Town Hall organised by the Sean in Brixton recently.