Students

Tories plan to decimate university arts courses: build a fightback now!

May 12, 2021

Student Socialist Alternative
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Student Socialist Alternative

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Tories plan to decimate university arts courses: build a fightback now!

A recent ‘consultation’, launched at short notice by the Office for Students (OfS) – a subsection of the Department for Education – has proposed a 50% cut to courses in the arts at UK universities for the 2021-2022 academic year, coming into effect from September onwards. This suggestion has been made under the pretext of prioritising “high value” courses such as Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects, as well as healthcare. However, according to the proposals this would come at the expense of “high-cost” courses including music, dance, drama, media, performing arts and archaeology which, scandalously, have been dismissed by the Tories as not “strategic priorities”.

Students on full-time arts courses currently receive £243 in funding (2020-21) from the OfS; but the proposed plan would bring this down to £121.50. Under the plan, spending for non-prioritised subjects will be cut overall from £36m to £19m, ‘saving’ almost £20m to be redirected to other areas such as nursing and computing. These proposals have been met with outrage from workers in the creative industries, as well as from students and staff in the arts.

According to the Musicians’ Union: “The proposed funding cut will be catastrophic for music provision at HE level, affecting our members’ work, the financial viability of music courses, and training for the next generation of musicians and music professionals”.

The Tories’ priorities

Subjects such as healthcare and STEM are undoubtedly important, especially given the recent context of the pandemic, and with a shortage of nursing staff in the NHS thanks to decades of Tory underfunding and privatisation. But at the same time, for many people around the world, the experience of lockdown has highlighted the importance of the arts in society as millions turned toward books, music, film and other media to maintain their mental health, and social and cultural connections. So what gives the government a license to effectively deem this as a waste for funding? Why not increase funding for both?

Already, the impact of years of government underfunding for the arts has led many young and working class people to see the arts as something that is not ‘for them’. If we allow this to happen, these cuts will further compound this, decimating arts departments in many universities and further excluding students from working-class backgrounds in a subject that is already all too often seen as a middle-class pursuit.

Hidden in the details is plans for further attacks beyond the 50%. The Office for Students adds even further that, on top of the existing cut, they would then “potentially seek further reductions in future years”, indicating the Tories’ plan to whittle down the curriculum even further in the long term. It will not be lost on arts students that this is the same government behind the “Rethink. Reskill. Reboot.” ad campaign last October which pushed for arts workers (such as the infamously fictitious ballerina “Fatima”) to leave their profession for jobs in cyber.

For years, university courses and services have been strangled by cuts across the board. The brunt of this has been borne by staff and students. Last year, courses were slashed at universities such as SOAS University of London. Staff at the University of Brighton are currently fighting to defend the on-campus nursery against closure.

In 2015, University of the Arts London (UAL) provoked a backlash from students and staff by cutting over 500 foundation course places. For many working-class students, these foundation courses were essential to getting onto the full course.

None of this is to deny that many STEM courses will urgently need extra funding, which has been a point made for years by research bodies, student groups and education unions. But universities need more funding in all courses and all services they provide. These proposals offer no real solution for students or university departments, but will instead pit them against each other over what the Tories want to present as a dwindling supply of money.

But the wealth exists in society to guarantee full funding for all courses. Vice Chancellors receive an average salary of £350,000 per year, and the profits of the ruling class have skyrocketed over the course of the pandemic.

Students, cultural workers and university staff need to get organised to fight back against cuts to university services, and to demand a fully-funded, democratically controlled education system that can genuinely support the needs of society.

Student Socialist Alternative stands with all staff and students facing the threat of cuts to their courses. We will be launching campaigns fighting for a full cancellation of these planned cuts, but also for proper funding and a plan to reclaim education to end marketisation and the destructive effects of the capitalist market on our universities. If you want to help us build this fightback, join us today and get involved!

Student Socialist Alternative calls for:
- Solidarity with Higher Education staff and the University and College Union. Prepare to ballot for militant industrial action to fight cuts to any university courses.
- Organise student protests on campus in every area to defend our courses and to stand with university staff.
- All universities which will be affected should demand action now to stop their courses closing.
- Full funding for university courses, student housing and tuition fees.
- For an end to lavish VC pay packets to help cover the costs. For a fully publicly-owned and properly funded education system run under the democratic control of students, staff and the community.
While the Tories deny racism, school students walk out to #DecoloniseEducation

Two reports have recently emerged trying to whitewash the Tories of blame and deny the racism that is endemic within capitalist society. On 30 March, the Met Police investigated themselves, only to find that they had “acted appropriately” when forcibly clamping on vigils to Sarah Everard and other victims of gender-based violence. More recently, alarm has come from the release of the government’s Race Commission report.

Already, the so-called independence of this report has been completely exposed. Original arrangements for it had been conducted by Boris Johnson’s senior advisor Munira Mirza, with the eventual product being commissioned by Tony Sewell – a CEO of a charity who just so happens to be friends with Johnson, accepting the Tory line on racism (it basically doesn’t exist!)

It is no surprise why choices so seemingly random and disconnected were made by Johnson in putting the report together. Both Mirza and Swell have a long record of commentary absolving the government and police of blame for systemic racism in Britain, with some of it branching out into overt denialism and apologism. Does Johnson really think it is appropriate for an official report into racism to have been organised by a woman who penned articles on far-right websites with headlines like “The myth of institutional racism” (2019) and “Stop pandering to muslims” (2007)?

Sewell’s own past writing has centred on his claim that, rather than systemic racism and discrimination, the main problem facing black communities is “absent fathers”. This mirrors a long history of tropes insinuating that BAME people themselves are to blame for the conditions they are faced in society – a particularly ironic thing to say when we consider

Johnson himself is an absent father to a still-unknown number of children!

Through rigging, cherry-picking data and lying about which academics contributed to the report, the resulting 258 pages conclude that Britain is no longer a country where the “system is deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities”. Those who complain about racism today are the real ones to blame for refusing to recognise that Britain serves as “a beacon to the rest of Europe and the world”, showing “reluctance to ackonwledge that the UK had become open and fairer”.

A central method of the report is also in centring the discussion about racism solely on the attitudes of individual white people towards race, focussing on data suggesting that blatant racist attitudes are less in favour among White British people than they were in previous decades. Even if this is true, it doesn’t take much to demonstrate this is missing the point. More than anything, this is the Tories attempting to divert blame from themselves. If racism is solely an ‘individual’ issue rather than systemic, Johnson no longer has to concern himself with disproportionate gaps in outcome for BAME people in education, health and police harrassment, which the report reduces to “culture”.

Protests

Nobody in the #BlackLivesMatter movement was really asking for this report. What was being demanded was concrete action on what we knew already existed!

Rather than waiting on a government report to let us know whether or not racism is real, hundreds of young and working class people took to the streets in last year’s wave of BLM protest, which lifted the lid on the legacy of colonialism and imperialism in Britain while highlighting existing injustices. Parallels currently can also be made to the continued protests against the Tories’ draconian Police and Crime Bill, which threatens to severely restrict the democratic right to protest. While campaigners in Bristol last year tore down the statue to slave trader Edward Colston, this year they are up against police violence which has been seriously misrepresented in the capitalist media.

It is ironic how, in the same week that the Tories try to place a lid on discussions about racism through this report, protests erupted at Pimlico Academy in South London, where students staged walkouts chanting “we want change!” over the shocking scale of discrimination in the school. The Academy’s headteacher Daniel Smith had incurred the disgust of students by banning the afro hairstyle, along with ‘colourful’ hijabs. In this context, the move to fly the Union Flag in the school yard was perceived by students as an underhanded attack on them.

The demands of the students in their schoolyard occupation have been inspirational. Hundreds of students of all ethnicities stood together to demand not just a reversal of the school’s decision, but also for a thorough revision of the school curriculum to no longer simply reflect a history of European kings and queens.

The action has already had an impact, with the headteacher apparently promising to stand down. The National Education Union, which represents the interests of education workers and teachers, have made arrangements to ballot for strike action over their own grievances. This demonstrates powerful opportunities to bring these struggles together, of students and education workers united in their demands!

Where next for BLM in education?

We need to make sure that a new explosion of protest takes place, demonstrating that #BlackLivesMatter and demanding an end to violence against women and gender non-comforming people, which the capitalist system breeds.

Preparations for this should be made with education unions in all schools, colleges and universities preparing for action in solidarity wherever students are protesting to expose oppression, whether that be racism, or around discussions on rape culture, which has gained increased prominence in recent weeks.

We need to make sure that all waves of protest like this not only demonstrate existing inequality, but force through lasting changes. This is why action committees and mass assemblies of students, supportive parents and teaching unions should be formed in all places of education to ensure that necessary changes to the curriculum take place. Our education should reflect who we are now, as well as informing young people about our rich history of anti-racist and workers struggle, led by a multi-racial working class.

How do we force this? One way should be through preparation for a national student strike against racism and sexism. Where student action is taking place, connections should be made with teachers’ unions and other unions and campaign groups, first for regional and London-wide action before branching out further.

It is only by connecting our struggles, finding ground to unite and challenging victim-blaming and elite power that we can win real change. Ultimately, we need to challenge the rotten capitalist system – a system which thrives on continued division between oppressed people and workers. Capitalism can’t meet our needs; it must go!

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Come to our national launch of Socialist Feminist Alternative – “Stamp Out Sexism and Racism: At school, at work, on the street” – Friday April 16 @ 7pm.

Register on Eventbrite and click ‘going’ here!
Racism at Glasgow University exposed: For mass action against oppression!

A review into racism at the University of Glasgow has shown that 1 in 20 Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic students and staff have experienced at least one or more incidents of racial harassment. The report, prompted by a study from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in 2019, shows a gap for Black, Asian, and ethnic minorities by over 10% in the awarding of degrees, compared to their white counterparts.

Approximately 500 students took part while in-depth interviews were held with 20 BAME members of staff. The report highlighted issues of racial harassment not taken seriously, with those in managerial positions being revealed to have had an unconcerned attitude towards racist abuse.

This has led victims of discriminatory behavior reluctant to report racist harassment. When one member of staff at the university reported being called a racial slur by a colleague, they were asked by their manager “what did you do to make her say that?” Another worker also spoke of experiencing extreme mental strain while working under management’s indifference to racism. More than a quarter of ethnic minority students who took part in the survey say the University of Glasgow has a serious problem with racism.

Response from the managers

Sir Anton Muscatelli, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Glasgow (Chair of the ‘Russell Group’ of elite universities from 2017-2020) apologised “unreservedly”. But as chair of the University’s Equality and Diversity Strategy Committee, his limited ‘action’ has been underwhelming, with representation of the wishes of ethnic minority staff and students from the senior management or main decision making bodies of the university, such as the university court or senate.

It will take more than apologies to fix the damage that has been done toward BAME staff and students’ well being. A ‘zero-tolerance’ policy is a first step in the right direction, but these issues highlighted in the report are nothing new, especially since this report comes two years after the university published a report into it’s historical links to slavery and pledged to begin work on a “significant reparative justice programme”. We see the same sentiment of an ‘action plan’ time and time again without seeing any improvement of the lives of BAME students, educators, and staff under capitalist education.

Muscatelli should immediately resign over reprehensible conduct. We can no longer trust in the same kinds of managers who have been overseeing marketisation and the hiking up of student fees, while continuously making vapid promises to their students, educators and staff. Universities are acting more like private, for-profit companies under capitalism; not the institutions of learning they claim to be. We can look toward movements at Manchester and Lancaster Universities, where campaigns have been organised to force referendums on their senior managers resigning, with replacements being held democratically accountable.

Action needed to fight racism on and off campus

In these times of physical limitations and virtual learning we will have to do all we can to expose the realities of racism, on and off campus. This should include the use of socially distanced protest and militant trade union action to demand safe environments for Black, Asian and ethnic minority students and workers.

Institutional racism in education is a product of our capitalist system, one which relies on the oppression and division of many to uphold power for the wealthy few. Students and staff should not have to work in hostile environments. Racism should be taken seriously, with consequences for those who uphold this backward ideology.

Those in power must be held accountable. Solidarity action from both workers and students need to be taken towards confronting the structural racism in our schools and workplaces. Ultimately, we need to fight the unjust capitalist system with socialism.

If you agree, join Socialist Alternative and Student Socialist Alternative today, to fight for a better world free of oppression, exploitation and capitalism!

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