ANOTHER HIGHER EDUCATION IS ALREADY HERE – BEYOND TUITION FEES #8

Posted on May 12, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged 1963 Robbins Report, 1997 Dearing Report, 2010 Browne Review, academics, administrators, adult education, AntiUniversity NOW, authority, Beyond Tuition Fees, borders, capitalism, competition, corbyn, course closures, employability, featured, Free Education, grading, grassroots, higher education, Labour, Leicester Vaughan College, mental illness, metrics, Mondragon Unibertsitatea, nationalism, neoliberalism, privatisation, privilege, radical imagination, social inequality, Solidarity Acadamies, state funding, student debt, student loans, students, teaching, tuition fees, UCU strike, uk, Universidad de la Tierra, universities, university management, workers rights, workplace abuse.

By Sarah Amsler

It is a time of extraordinary potential for change in UK Higher Education. Labour’s promise to end tuition fees has defied the critics and united many behind Corbyn’s political project. But what will the implications for universities be if this comes to pass? And what can we do to leverage this progress? In this series, the Norwich Radical and Bright Green are bringing together perspectives from across the sector to explore these questions.

‘The university’ is a fertile space within which to practice radical imagining and world-making today. I do not mean that actually-existing universities, in the UK or elsewhere, necessarily provide space for such work. On the contrary, there is ample evidence that the spaces for critique and creative thinking in higher education have shrunk as forces of commodity fetishism, privatisation, competition and authoritarian modes of control have permeated university governance. Continue Reading

EDUCATION AS EMANCIPATION – BEYOND TUITION FEES #7

Posted on May 4, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged Beyond Tuition Fees, capital, capitalism, commodification, corbyn, cultural capital, david richardson, degrees, dissent, economy, education, featured, Free Education, government, HEFCE, higher education, Labour, labour market, marketisation, nationalisation, office for students, pedagogy, policy, professional classes, public ownership, research, society, state funding, student experience, student satisfaction, students, teaching, tuition fees, UEA, uk, UKRI, universities, university staff, workers.

By Michael Kyriacou

It is a time of extraordinary potential for change in UK Higher Education. Labour’s promise to end tuition fees has defied the critics and united many behind Corbyn’s political project. But what will the implications for universities be if this comes to pass? And what can we do to leverage this progress? In this series, the Norwich Radical and Bright Green are bringing together perspectives from across the sector to explore these questions.

The traditional arguments for ‘free education’ focus on reducing the upfront price of university courses to zero. Rather than HE being a commodity to be traded on the open market, it becomes a good paid for by the government. This kind of argument rests on a contradiction: we cannot solve the commodification of HE by continuing to assert the existence of HE as commodity, even a nationalised one. Abolishing tuition fees is undoubtedly a good thing, but to move beyond their legacy we must understand HE as devoid not only of its price but also its status as a commodity. We need to explore the potential for HE grounded not in classification or institution but in the fundamental equality of intelligences – HE without the degree.

Continue Reading

CANAPES, CONFERENCES AND CLASS DISCRIMINATION – ACADEMIA IN 2017

Posted on September 22, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged #LiberateMyDegree, academia, academic culture, accessibility, Aristotle, assessment, BME, BME academics, bursaries, casualisation, class, conferences, curricula, disability, disabled academics, discrimination, diversity, education, erasure, exclusion, hidden costs, higher education, history, legislation, Lisa McKenzie, Louise Richardson, LSE, middle class, minority groups, NUS, politics, postgraduate, poverty fund, psychology, recognition, Sally Hunt, scholarships, sexual harassment, state funding, student support, subsidies, truth, UCU, understanding, universities, VC salaries, Vice Chancellors, women academics, workers rights, working class, working class erasure, working class movement.

by Bradley Allsop

CW: mentions sexual harassment

A teacake and a portable phone charger. Unlikely objects to trigger a tirade against the state of academic practices in the UK, but here you are, about to read one anyway.

Continue Reading

BLINDED BY IDEOLOGY – TWO YEAR DEGREES REVISITED

Posted on September 15, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged career focus, class, class divide, competition, cuts, economics, education, fast track degrees, first time buyers, Free Education, free school meals, government, grades, HE policy, higher education, ideology, interest, isolation, lower socio-economic backgrounds, market economics, mental health, mental health services, middle class, minority government, module diversity, money grab, overwork, state funding, student debt, student finance, student loans, student support, student welfare, students, teaching, teaching quality, The Student Room, time pressure, Times Higher Education, Tories, tuition fees, two tier system, two year degrees, underfunding, wealth inequality, working class, working class students.

Back in March, the MinoriTory government announced the idea of running fast track two year degree courses in the hope of saving students money. Last week the Times Higher Education supplement revealed that surveyed students from lower socio-economic backgrounds would be more likely to take this option up if it existed. Could the Tories’ apparently hare-brained scheme in fact be justified?

Continue Reading

%d bloggers like this: