Last Saturday, Free Education for Everyone Galway was involved in a protest march from Eyre Square to NUI Galway, which resulted in over a 1000 students, turf-cutters, single parents, anti-war activists and others breaking through a Gardai & Private Security barrier erected to stop the Labour Party from seeing the 1000s of people who have been severely affected by their actions over the past year.

It was already clear that 100s of people who had travelled from all over the country were not content with being penned off in a car-park, well out of sight of the delegates to the Conference. On entering the University, these people proceeded to march up to the barrier to at least make sure they could be heard by Gilmore and his party. The first push on the barrier was met with pepper-spray from the Gardai. This resulted in at least 8 people falling back and having to claw at their eyes and mouths from the extreme agony of the burning sensation. No warning was given that such a weapon was being used. 30 minutes after this, over a 100 people, angered by the tactic of the Gardai successfully breached the barrier.

The Labour Party are responsible for shutting down the campus and denying a student society from organising a conference on campus that same weekend as well as for the Gardai and private security being present. They have refused to condemn the use of pepper-spray on students and other protesters. One of our members, Sarah McCarthy said:

 ”I am auditor of the United Left Alliance Society here in NUIG. Over 2 months ago we booked the IT building to hold a proper left-wing conference on the same weekend. About a week or 2 ago, we were told that we couldn’t have that building anymore and we were forced to hold the event OFF-campus. Why? Because the Labour Party had got on the university because they didnt want to be embarrassed by having their sell-out highlighted and made damn sure it wasn’t gonna happen. So their money and influence ensured that they, a political party with nothing to do with the college bar the cuts they keep throwing at it, had more of a right to assemble and talk than a college society.”

One member of FEE Galway had this to say -

“I got pepper sprayed along with a few comrades. It was agonising. The day was still a huge success and I’m so proud of everybody who helped push through the barricades. I’m okay now, but wasn’t for like 30 plus minutes afterward. It felt like my face (and eyes in particular) was on fire and the flesh was burning from my face. Not nice. I’m just delighted we managed to break through the barricades. It was amazing.” 

For further comment of how it happened and how it affected those hit, please contact -

Joseph – 087 2729021
Sarah – 085 7477907
Fergal – 085 1653066

Pepper-sprayed on their own campus is a post from Free Education for Everyone

By FEE UCD

As has been well documented, when Labour became the balance of power under the Spring Tide, one of their lasting achievements was the abolishment of third level fees for all undergraduates. Next week, students of UCD will be asked whether or not they want to abandon this principle in favour of a more “realistic” option in the current economic climate. Most of us in the college have felt the crisis’ bite already, if it is needing welfare assistance or an increased reliance on the grant, an so it may seem reasonable to suggest that an alternative is needed, but how realistic are these alternatives?

Firstly, and most obviously, there is the reintroduction of full fees, paid upfront at the beginning of every year. Certainly this would relieve a great deal of stress from the Department of Finance, and yet it does nothing to help the vast majority of the population. Already, in the first few years of the recession, we have seen a great increase in the disparity between rich and poor in the nation, something that will only increase as it continues. If Universities were able to set their own prices on entry it would not be to the benefit of lower or even middle income applicants. Some will argue that this will increase the funding for third level but if we follow the current system and simply add the student contribution to what the state pays, there would be no increase in revenue, and probably a decrease as less people will attend college.

The other main alternative is referred to as the student loan system, its premise being that all the graduates will pay back a certain amount of their wages once they start earning. This is the system that has been in Australia since the late 1990s and is generally seen as a colossal failure. Many graduates simply emigrate as soon as they have finished their degree, never re-contributing or paying back their loans, causing the state to bail out the independent loan companies for millions of dollars. It has also come to light about how much the undergraduates suffer in trying to maintain a passable standard of living, working as many hours as they have classes, while 1 in 8 have been admitted to hospital for stress, malnutrition and fatigue.

Our own Student Union President is promoting the idea of a graduate tax, against the mandate currently in place in the college. What this means is that anyone with a bachelor’s degree will have to pay and extra form of taxation once they have reached a certain earning threshold. It seems to fail to take into account that this is still money taken from the exchequer initially, only to be removed from the economy later on, nothing will change. In any case, the facts show that anyone with a higher degree generally earns at the higher tax level already, you already pay for your degree once you start earning.

And so we return to the fully exchequer paid system. Since its introduction attendances have increased amongst all areas in society, and particularly amongst the middle class. Only a few years after its introduction, the number of highly trained graduates was one of the reasons that Ireland experienced a boom the likes of which it had never seen before. With a distorted healthcare system and a welfare system that has been slashed beyond all recognition, the education system could be the jewel in the Irish state, just like the NHS is in the UK.

We are not being asked in this “preferendum” what is realistic, what we are being asked is what we would prefer, what is ideal, and what should we strive towards? It took nearly forty years to achieve a partially state-funded system for undergraduates and if we let it go now, we will never get it back.

Thoughts on the Preferendum… is a post from Free Education for Everyone

The system used to select and mandate delegates differs in each third-level institution.
This year in NUIG, preference was given to the current Students’ Union
executive, then to the incoming executive and then to class reps. The Student
Council meeting held to mandate the NUIG delegation on who to vote for in the
upcoming USI elections as well as on which funding model to support is open to
everyone but only Class Reps can vote. This meeting was held on Wednesday the
28^th of March. With less than 30 class reps in attendance, quorum
was not met and as such no decision could be reached. Consequently, the NUIG
delegation will now go to USI Congress and vote on a funding model without any
debate or consultation from the 17,000 plus members they are supposedly
representing.

In other institutions, the “preferendum” has been put to the student body as a
referendum. In Trinity College, their delegation was instructed to vote for a
Student Loan system after the results of the referendum. 400 people voted and
little to no information was provided concerning the different funding model
positions bar a link on a website.

On Wednesday the 28^th in NUIG, at the same Student Council mentioned previously
most of the candidates for the USI Officer-board 2012/2013 were present. Each
one of them was asked which funding model they would support in the
“preferendum”. All of them bar one said they would vote for a Graduate Tax.

It has become clear that the USI is no longer operating as a Union whose sole purpose
is to keep education open to all and to defend students’ rights. The USI is not
meant to serve as a middle-man between the Government and students; it exists
to demand, advocate and demonstrate for free education. The mere fact that such
options like a graduate tax, student loan system or full fees are even included
on a USI ballot paper tells us the organisation has forgotten its mandate as a
defender of equality of access to education.

Free Education for Everyone is calling on all those who believe in universal
education to attend this USI Congress next week – delegate or not. It is abundantly
clear that the nature of this “preferendum” is undemocratic. This is
demonstrated by the fact that the vote is being carried out by secret ballot
with many delegations free-voting without any consultation of the wider student
body.

“100% Exchequer-funded” or free education
means that students pay absolutely no direct fees and education is funded
through taxation.  The reason we support
this system is because rather than seeing education as a commodity that can be
bought and sold, and where students are customers, we believe that education is
a fundamental right for all citizens, and not just a privilege for the rich. We
believe that educating citizens to the highest level possible level, third and
beyond, benefits not just individuals but society as a whole.

The USI Congress is taking place in the Carlton Shearwater Hotel
in Ballinasloe Co. Galway from Monday 2^nd April to Thursday 5^th April. Discussion on the “preferendum”
motion will take place on the Monday at 7.15pm in the Plaza Suite. Voting on
the motion will take place at 5pm in the Clonfert Suite. Counting of votes in
the “preferendum” will begin after the conclusion of the Officer Board count
which starts at 8.30am on the Wednesday.

This is our chance to make it clear to this government that their diversionary
tactics will not sway us from fighting for free education. This message is
delivered to all those who are ready and willing to make that stance clear at
this congress. We hope to see you there.

Calling all Believers of Free Education is a post from Free Education for Everyone

The open letter stated that every student has been in some way affected negatively by the cut-backs that have been implemented by the current Fine Gael/Labour coalition. Several of the points highlighted were the cut in the grant, the record numbers of students dropping out due to financial problems and the mass emigration of graduates. This point was stressed by the union in a direct attack on the minister stating, ‘Maynooth Students’ Union cannot welcome onto campus any Minister who supported that budget. This Government is running a country in which every single day another 110 graduates emigrate. This is devastating families, and yet the Minister has the audacity to come to Maynooth, point to Europe and say “Jobs are that way.”’

The protest got underway  with good spirits within the crowd, who were all ushered away from the entrance to Iontas behind barriers at the edge of the square. The minister’s car arrived at 4 p.m. and was met with the infamous ‘no ifs, no buts, no education cuts’. The minister was then called upon to address the cutbacks that she has supported, but the call was ignored. Someone from the crowd could clearly take it no more and bellowed across the square ‘LUCINDA, Y U NO TALK TO STUDENTS’.

Many students, including FEE (Free Education for Everyone) then decided to enter the lecture address, but MSU as stated in their open letter were boycotting the event. What followed was a large number of students taking seats near the front of the lecture theatre and waiting until the Minister took to the stage. Ruadhrí Boland then interrupted, exclaiming, ‘Minister, I’m sorry for the disruption, but due to your party’s stance on graduate funding, fees and grants and your personal views on gay rights I’m leaving this lecture and asking Maynooth students to leave with me.’ Reports are that between thirty to forty students then left to which the Minister replied ‘ok’.

While most of the protesting students had now left at this point, about a dozen of the FEE activists stayed outside Iontas after walking out to continue their protest, talking with inquiring students. Some of the students exiting the talk early were overheard saying “Well that was no use at all. We do science”. Those waiting outside joked about Minister Creighton being parked on a double yellow line, although the presence of her driver thwarted any attempt to inform the now infamous clampers on campus.

As the minister made her way out through one of the building’s side exits, she again refused to engage with the students. This time the chants focused more on her often controversial views on gay marriage, with FEE activist Martin Grehan leading with a reworking of Kelis’ Milkshake to the lyrics “Two Dads, are better than none. They just, want a son”, as the minister’s car left the campus.

-Shane McNally with additional reporting by Pádraig McCarrick

This article was also originally published in The Student Obsever. Feel free to check it out, they’re quite nifty.

FEE Activists and Maynooth Student’s Union Protest Minister Visit to NUIM is a post from Free Education for Everyone

15.03: Parents and primary school children have arrived to support the occupation

Food denied to occupiers

Someone arrested for trying to give occupiers a loaf of bread

inside the occupation: https://twitter.com/#!/feeireland/status/174883705813348352/photo/1

more photos from the occupation http://tinyurl.com/87wjwu2

report from Trinity’s University Times: http://tinyurl.com/836tb8y

Occupiers have left the bank peacefully, all protestors marched to the Garda station in solidarity with the one person arrested.

Chants were heard of ‘free free free our friend, she only threw a loaf of bread!’

The one person arrested has been released from Mill St Garda Station

More as and when it happens.

FEE Galway Occupy AIB is a post from Free Education for Everyone

To whom it may concern… is a post from Free Education for Everyone

Galway, Ireland. 22

Students, led by the group Free Education for Everyone Galway, are set to march against the planned increase of Third-Level fees to €3000 by 2015 and the abolition of the Postgraduate grant.

The march will take place in Galway on Wednesday, 29 February at 1pm, with participants marching from NUIG’s campus to Eyre Square where they will be met by speakers. It will be part of a National Day of Action held by students across the island, north and south, and will also be focused against cutbacks on primary and secondary level education. Mayo has a strong presence in the city’s student body. 

Equality Officer at NUIG Student’s Union, William O’Brien, said that ‘The government’s abolition of the student grant for all incoming postgraduate students is yet another sickening attack by this odious, IMF dominated government on the living standards of young people. Now is the time for students to stand up for their rights and make their voices heard against this insane austerity agenda that is directly attacking students and killing our country’.

‘Measures such as increased school transport charges, cuts to English language teachers for newcomer children and the planned closure of smaller primary schools are all direct attacks on those in primary and secondary education and their families.’ said 1st year Medicine student Evelyn Fennelly. ’I will be marching as I believe individuals from all levels of education need to unite if these vicious cuts are to be defeated’.

2nd year Arts student Sarah McCarthy said ‘This gombeen government and their IMF/ECB puppet masters has sacrificed the youth of the nation at the altar of neo-liberalism.  Each and every student must rise up and smash this hated bankers’ government into the ground.’

Free Education For Everyone is a nationwide grassroots campaign dedicated to fighting cutbacks to all levels of the education system as part of a wider campaign against austerity. Recent actions by the Galway branch include the occupation of Deputy Brian Walsh’s office in Bohermore last November, in which 9 activists were arrested, and a blockade of Fine Gael’s pre-budget think-in at the city’s Radisson Hotel last September.

Críoch/Ends
For further information, contact William O’Brien on  086 8683390 , or email feegalway@gmail.com

Angry Students Set to March Against Education Cuts is a post from Free Education for Everyone

Since the start of the school year in 2008 and the financial crisis which swept the globe, the government and the institutions mandated and constituted to administer and develop the education system have taken many radical steps to reform and reshape the education system. This is achieved within a framework derivative of the neo-liberal philosophy which was à la mode with governments and financial sectors during the genesis of the recession.

These decisions are made behind closed doors with little or no consultation with the public; which is almost always initiated from the outside. Since September 2011 and now; the IUA(Irish universities association), HEA(higher education authority), the NCCA(National council for curriculum and assessment) and the DoES( Department of education and science) have been engaging in discussions about how the education sector will adjust to the enormous cuts; both current and proposed. The “rationalisation” of first and second level education is also happening, with the future society having it’s development affected by decisions made under the “rationale” that class sizes should go up so as to pay unsecured (no legal or moral obligation) bondholders ( part of the financial elite who caused crisis in the first place).

In fact to date there have been a wide range of funding cuts to the education system. In primary education Deis schools; those in disadvantaged area where extra supports were provisioned have had severe staff cutbacks.Smaller schools will be forced to take on more pupils thus increasing the pupil-teacher ratio to the detriment of teachers’ ability to do their highly valuable work. School transport charges are also on the rise, which will have a crippling effect on rural communities or those with a school commute.Special needs is now less of a priority in trying to include those with learning, intellectual or physical issues in the greater society; the last government capping SNA (special needs assistants) at 10,400 and Official rhetoric suggesting further cuts as inevitable. Schools will have to learn to deal with less English language support teachers who work with immigrant children helping them cope with learning the language. Primary modern languages programmes are again, apparently disposable when cutting the €2.5 million being used to teach a range of modern foreign languages in more than 500 primary schools nationwide is on the government’s agenda while bringing not national, but international uproar as regressive. In secondary education professional guidance services are to be abolished coupled with the projected increases in student numbers across the board which means less funding per enrolled pupil/student; this will only have a debilitating effect on a population saddled with twenty years of austerity ahead of it.

Should the perspective third level student manage to run the gauntlet of a devastated primary and secondary education system, he or she will find an eviscerated system mangled by Bologna Accords, corporate administration and a lack of knowledge for knowledge’s sake and research funding centred around profitability/commercial value. Proposed funding cuts of 6% in third level by 2014 means a cap on student numbers or the complete reintroduction of tuition fees the most prohibitive funding mechanism when related to access equality. This is on the back of student contribution rises from €850 per student in 2008/09 to €2,250 with an intended rise to €3,000 by 2015 can hardly bode well for a system which has already seen a 6% cut in staff and a virtual freeze on capital spending.The abolition of post-graduate maintenance grants is a maneuver which flies in the face of establishment propaganda about “smart economies” as does the fact that Irish universities are only afforded 60% of the funding of their EU counterparts and since 1996 the proportion of exchequer income spent on education has drop from 19% to 16%; given these statistics it is not hard to see why Ireland is a lowly 27th out of 31 OECD countries when relating education spending to  wealth(GDP).

Student nurses are expected to work without pay due to a precarious medical system underfunded and warped with bureaucracy and private/public provisions where the state pays private companies/corporations to provide services for profit which the public service could do if given adequate resources; all a gift of the neo-liberalism of the Mary Harney/PD brand.

So the outlook for all stakeholders in our education system is quite bleak, however the vast majority of Irish people would agree on the importance of education both individually and socially and this is reflective in the numbers at protests and demonstration around the country corresponding to some of the cuts mentioned above.

Free Education for Everyone (FEE) is a national campaign based around third level access issues including; the fee increases, grant cuts/abolition and commercialisation of the campus. The campaign has arrived at the conclusion that a united front across the education sector is required to effectively fight and overturn those cuts already administered and those proposed for the future. Wednesday, the 29th of this month (February), has been set as a FEE National Day of Action Against All Education Cuts- in Galway the local campaign in conjunction with NUI Galway Students Union is organising a march. The March is proposed to commence at 1.00pm at the University road entrance to the campus, passing the Cathedral and moving finally on to Eyre Square where we will have speakers. All are welcome to join the demonstration and any organisations or individuals wishing to contribute or enquiring about more information can get in contact at feegalway@gmail.com.

National Day of Action Against All Education Cuts is a post from Free Education for Everyone

The march will take place in Galway on Wednesday, 29 February at 1pm, with participants marching from NUIG’s campus to Eyre Square where they will be met by speakers. It will be part of a National Day of Action held by students across the island, north and south, and will also be focused against cutbacks on primary and secondary level education. Mayo has a strong presence in the city’s student body. 

Equality Officer at NUIG Student’s Union, William O’Brien, said that ‘The government’s abolition of the student grant for all incoming postgraduate students is yet another sickening attack by this odious, IMF dominated government on the living standards of young people. Now is the time for students to stand up for their rights and make their voices heard against this insane austerity agenda that is directly attacking students and killing our country’.

‘Measures such as increased school transport charges, cuts to English language teachers for newcomer children and the planned closure of smaller primary schools are all direct attacks on those in primary and secondary education and their families.’ said 1st year Medicine student Evelyn Fennelly. ’I will be marching as I believe individuals from all levels of education need to unite if these vicious cuts are to be defeated’.

2nd year Arts student Sarah McCarthy said ‘This gombeen government and their IMF/ECB puppet masters has sacrificed the youth of the nation at the altar of neo-liberalism.  Each and every student must rise up and smash this hated bankers’ government into the ground.’

Free Education For Everyone is a nationwide grassroots campaign dedicated to fighting cutbacks to all levels of the education system as part of a wider campaign against austerity. Recent actions by the Galway branch include the occupation of Deputy Brian Walsh’s office in Bohermore last November, in which 9 activists were arrested, and a blockade of Fine Gael’s pre-budget think-in at the city’s Radisson Hotel last September.

Críoch/Ends
For further information, contact William O’Brien on 086 8683390, or email feegalway@gmail.com. Visit www.free-education.info, and please read the attached letter.

Angry Students Set to March Against Education Cuts is a post from Free Education for Everyone

Education should be about teaching people how to think, not what to think. Third level education today however has become no more than state subsidised training. Universities are now just a huge assembly line churning out regimented workers for the benefit of corporations, banks and big business. Terms such as “market-based education”, “user charges”, “tuition fees” and “cost recovery” are now common.

This new approach to education funding stems from the influence of World Bank policy advice, and conditions for loans and debt relief, which consider free public services for all “financially unsustainable”. Rather than places of enlightenment, the primary role of universities today is to meet the labour requirements as stipulated by employers.

Students should be allowed to reach their own conclusions rather than have opinions forced upon them by conservative and rich professors. Most people never consciously choose to be capitalists; it is forced upon them from birth and consolidated in the state education system. While our education system must teach people skills so they can make a contribution to society and create wealth, we must not let it be hijacked by big business for their benefit. There is pressure on public universities by both legislators and state system governing boards to design accelerated degree completion programs, credit-for-work experience, distance education links to industry sites, and other options for the non-traditional “adult learner”. The Arts are under attack while employers want more students studying maths and science so that the labour market in these areas will become glutted and wages forced down.

Students must fight to keep third level institutions as places of learning and not places of training. Lecturers and students alike nowadays cynically describe university education as a ‘factory’. The notion of the University as a mechanised profit machine is where the term derives its critical force. When the philosophy department at Middlesex University was shut down, the ‘Save Middlesex Philosophy’ campaign’s occupation strung an enormous banner out of a first floor window reading: ‘The University is a Factory. Strike! Occupy!’ The slogan became the emblematic image of the campaign. Part of the neo-liberal agenda is the casualisation of labour and the normalisation of precarity.

The student struggle for free education, therefore, is intrinsically linked to the workplace struggles of university staff. There is a lack of political engagement of ‘radical’ academics—Marxist or otherwise—and there seems to be no translation from critical thinking in the scholastic debating chamber to actual support for struggles taking place even within their own workplaces, including for the cleaners who sweep their departmental corridors. It is the economy and its needs that determine the quantity and content of the education that students receive. In the Culliton Report 1992, education was examined in the context of the contribution it could make to improve the competitiveness of the Irish economy, and it was stressed that the fostering of usable and marketable skills should be a priority within the educational system. Free education respects the intrinsic value of knowledge and ideas irrespective of their subjective value on the labour market. It is about the pursuit of learning for its own sake. It is therefore the opposite of the neo-liberal agenda, which sees the university as a factory churning out graduates for the benefit of big business, and which seeks to restructure the university to fit the priorities of big business and the markets. Performance indicators based on productivity and efficiency have become the current definition of accountability, and success in satisfying these measures is often the basis for funding allocations. It is important to oppose the commercialisation and commodification of education, which will lead to the prioritisation of subjects and areas of research that are profitable for businesses, to the detriment of others, regardless of their value to society. Measures should be put in place against the dilution of teaching which leaves graduates being equipped only with the skills and knowledge most desirable of employers. All this leads to the detriment of students’ intellectual and personal development. There should be an end to the distortion of scientific and medical research for private profit. There is a tendency towards casualisation amongst University staff. This includes the increasing composition of temporary staff, workers on sessional teaching contracts, and the way the increasing burden of work is being shifted to PhD students who are remunerated at a rate that is wholly inadequate to draw a living from. In recent times, universities have undergone a massive shift towards short-term contracts for both teaching and non-teaching staff. This places a downward pressure on wages and conditions, and undercuts the ability of trade unions and professional associations to organise on university campuses. Graduate students as an exploited class in the University’s internal economy, are used to depress wages, limit full time job openings, and operate in sync with the tendency towards pay-per-hour lecturers across the University sector as a whole. The university can much more easily cut the wages of contracted workers, safe in the knowledge that there are plenty more to take their place once their contact expires, should they decide to kick up a fuss.

For what drives PhD student teachers is resume building; what drives casualised University workers is staying within the system. In both cases, consciously submitting to exploitation is premised on the belief that the future will hold out better things to come: that temporary pain will pave the way to long-term success.

The University isn’t a factory is a post from Free Education for Everyone