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

At universities across Ireland (such as  NUIM, UCD and NUIG) students took time today to offer solidarity to education workers in a real,practical way- by joining them on picket lines.

The failure of the NUI Maynooth Student Union to support the one day strike did not deter a group of over 60 students from joining workers on various pickets at the University over the course of the day. Marchin

g together, a mix of students from various political organisations and campaigns, along with individual students, first took up residence at the en

trance to the North Campus.  Here, they joined members of Unite, IFUT and Siptu  who were picketing. The reception from staff to the  presence of students was fantastic.

The Labour Youth NUI Maynooth branch produced a great showing on the day, and these student activists moved to the South Campus entrance.  At 2PM many students who had picketed the North Campus entrance moved to join them, in a showing of solidarity with workers on that campus.

The University was dead during the strike, with very few academic staff crossing the picket. The vast majority of students did not attend the University, and respected the decision of NUIM staff to strike. In the build up to the strike, activists from Free Education for Everyone and the Social Solidarity Network had attempted to push the fact that job losses on campus will have a hugely negative effect on the standard of education on offer to students at the University. The fact so few students ‘crossed the picket’ is an indication that message got through.

A sincere thank you to all students who attended pickets today.

An Injury To One Is An Injury To All.

A Report From The Picket Lines: NUI Maynooth is a post from Free Education for Everyone

All of the trade unions representing staff working on the Maynooth campus are taking part in a one-day strike on Tuesday November 24th. The strike is protesting against the threat of further government-imposed cuts in the pay of university employees. Action is being taken following ballots in which the majority of members of the unions that are taking part voted in favour of coming out on strike.

Pickets will be placed at the entrances to the North and South campuses throughout the day on Tuesday. Students are asked not to pass these pickets and not to enter the campus while the strike is in progress. (A distinction is, of course, recognised here between students residing on campus and those who would normally be coming in to attend lectures etc. There is no intention to interfere with anyone’s access to their home. The aim is to bring the ordinary working parts of the university – its lecture theatres, labs, library etc. – to a halt for the period of the strike).

Hopefully you will have been informed of the cancellation of your classes by your lecturers in advance of Tuesday. If you are in any doubt, please contact the lecturer concerned to confirm that cancellation. With official pickets in place, the only people who will be conducting or attending classes will be those who have deliberately chosen to break the strike. Given the wide range of Maynooth employees stopping work on the day, it is quite likely that the campus will close down completely. University management intend to try and keep it open but health and safety considerations may lead them to reconsider this position once the strike is in progress. If you do not wish to actively express support for the strike, your wisest course of action may be to stay away from Maynooth on November 24th. Public transport services are likely to be disrupted on that day because workers right across the public sector are going to be involved in the strike.

It must be emphasised that trade union members on the campus are seeking and will warmly welcome student support for their action. Pay cuts are part of a wider package of measures that will progressively reduce the resourcing and the quality of the education provided to students in our schools and universities. The return to charging students tuition fees forms part of the same political agenda. Students and staff have a common interest in the protection of our education system against the kind of destructive changes with which it is currently threatened.

A letter from trade unionists on campus regarding November24th is a post from Free Education for Everyone

Many students  return home on Thursday night and Friday morning, with Friday traditionally the quiestest day on campus. We would urge students, and their families, to attend one of the demonstrations on November sixth.

There are 8 regional protests, and  all commence at 2.30pm on November 6th:

• Dublin – Parnell Square
• Waterford – The Glen
• Tullamore – County Hall
• Cork – Connolly Hall
• Limerick – Mechanics Institute
• Galway – The Cathedral
• Sligo – The Blue Lagoon
• Dundalk – The Fairgreen

Free Education for Everyone NUI Maynooth  will be on the Dublin demonstration,  and we’d be delighted if any students in the Maynooth/Dublin area come to Dublin that day and join us. Commuters from further afield should attend the regional demonstrations.

Free Education for Everyone NUI Maynooth has always offered its solidarity to education workers unions on campus, and we recognise that building links between education workers and students is essential if we are to combat the cutbacks destroying education at all levels. In NUI Maynooth, various Departments are currently facing massive unfair cutbacks at a time the University sees nothing wrong with the prospect of hosting Bertie Ahern T.D.

Free Education for Everyone NUI Maynooth sends full support to both the Irish Federation of University Teachers and SIPTU on campus, and indeed to the unions representing general workers on campus too.  On November 6th, we march with these people in defence of our campus, and the working conditions of those on it.

This rally can only be the start. On March 30th, we seen a day of action cancelled only days in advance, despite strike balloting suggesting huge levels of unhappiness amongst the membership of the unions. It is time for  a serious show of strength from workers, and as students- we must support this.

For more information on the ICTU Day of Action, visit www.getupstandup.ie

‘Get Up, Stand Up’ on November 6th- but remember- the campaign against cutbacks in education and the commercialisation of Irish education is not a one day affair. Get involved in Free Education for Everyone in NUIM by emailing feemaynooth@gmail.com or adding us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/nuimfightfees

Some activists from UCD FEE at the February Congress demo.

FEE NUIM urges Maynooth Students to march on November 6th. is a post from Free Education for Everyone

Siptu has made a call for support of the strike and picket being undertaken by its members in UCD on Monday the eleventh of September. Siptu explains that more than one third of staff in UCD are on a Fixed Term Contract, which is an extraordinarily high figure for a public institutions.
There are valid reasons why some of those staff are temporary. An academic may be on sabbatical leave or a staff member may have taken maternity leave and SIPTU acknowledges that a contract can be issued in these circumstances.

But, unfortunately, matters have gone beyond this and, in our view, casualisation and abuse of contract staff is occurring in UCD.

Six years ago, on 27 June 2000, the Governing Authority of UCD approved an agreement that had been concluded between SIPTU and UCD management.

This agreement involved three principles:

1. “fixed term contract staff are not treated in a less favourable manner to a comparable permanent worker.”

But UCD is not paying proper pension entitlements to this staff. This is clearly in contravention of the Protection of Employees (Fixed Term Work) Act 2003.

2. “fixed term contracts will not be used to avoid giving employees security of employment.”

UCD management have kept people on contracts for many years ? in one case since 1981 ? and not given these staff a permanent contract. Currently SIPTU has 20 cases before the Labour Relations Commission and we expect many more will go there.

2. “Fixed term contracts will apply in the case of vacancies arising from a temporary absence” ? they would be limited to certain defined circumstances.

Over the last two years, UCD management are replacing permanent jobs with temporary contracts. Existing staff have to work harder to cover for this disruption.

SIPTU members balloted by an 82 percent majority to take action on these issues.

We want management live up to their own policy and the law by providing contract staff a pension; and ensuring that all who are entitled to a permanant contract, receive a contract. Pickets will be placed on all entrances to UCD on Monday 11th September and we would ask for your support in not passing them.

Bring banners, placards, leaflets and slogans.

UCD Staff and Students Strike and Picket is a post from Free Education for Everyone