Tories give
THO DS students the third
NOVEMBER 11: and the fight against racism' for the student movement, at NOVEMBER 16: NUS National Shutdown of NOVEMBER 29: called by NUS London area Area 'Fight for OCTOBER 18: Manchester the right to study demo *Black struggle - a conference LSE in London Education and regional demos Anti-loans demo Page 19 line with the government's decided it is also necessary to take on their membership of over 2 million is national student organisation, and is as outlawing leaving its services intact or ending the arrangement by which students automatically become members of In the face of these assaults on its membership and on its very existence NUS has gone into crisis. The big dominated student polities for the last ats and social sciences courses rather than business studies and computer science. Despite the oversubscribed while the places for general strategy of destroying trade Tack to minimise resistance, they bave the National Union of Students. This weight hul disproportionale political influence, owing to the historical role of students in periods of social unrest and their structural position in society The vast majority of Britain's stu- dents are members of the NUS and the most powerful weapon they have the battle for education. The problem, advocated by rabid right wingers. such as Essex MP Tim Jan- man, of simply making it illegal for a local student union to affiliate to any currently considering more sophisti- "political" activity by the NUS while eighties phenomenon of graduate un- employment, postgraduate courses in English literature remain massively unions in the sector they wish to at- is an organisation with no economic dents consistently and overwhelming: approach to civil engineering are unfilled. their college student union. cated options such sledgehammer rors that the refashioning of Britain's the cheap is simply unrealisable. In- troducing loans and increasing fees hankruptcy: Even more galling is the Fact that given any choice at all, stu- driven hy the market, subordinated to The Tory decam of producing a institutions are on the verge of It is clear from this litany of her- a central plank of Thatcher's third the immediate needs of industry and talented to go to college, while many All this comes fast on the heels of "Great' Education Reform Act. This Polytechnic sector and some colleges of Higher Education, the imposition of business community representation bodies, and general moves towards marketisation and an orientahon to industry in the whole of post-16 education Meanwhile, the cuts in public spending grind relentlessly on, biting deeper and deeper into the fabric of the education system. Even Oxford University, that bastion of elitism and playground of the young fering from chronic underfunding. Ir education system in ber own image is sensus around liberal education and replacing it with something that is designed to narrow the mind. The thorough, operating at economic and ideological levels. It is also riven with well trained, compliant workforce.on ing with fractions of the real problem. the massive restructuring of all sec- tors of education contained in the included the privatisation of the bourgeoisic, is in financial