International Socialists

Penny Hayes

The fees campaign has been going on in New Zealand since at least 1984, when the Fourth Labour Government set in motion a series of attacks on students, in the form of fees and a market model in education amongst other things. In 1991, the student loan scheme was introduced - the first time that it became standard for tertiary students to have to borrow not just to pay for their tuition, but borrow to eat.

This is because only a very small minority of students are able to access a student allowance, because of means testing that outstrips that placed on beneficiaries. The effects of the student loan scheme have become even more apparent in recent years, with graduates fleeing overseas either to seek better incomes to enable them to pay off their loans quickly or avoiding them altogether, being prevented from securing mortgages and discouraged from having children, to name a few. Even more disturbingly, the effects of the education reforms are disproportionately affecting women and Mäori, and preventing those on lower incomes from entering university in the first place.

These details are well known. Students are used to being treated badly. But, even though the tertiary education sector has been in crisis for some time now there is no reason to think it can't get better. Some argue that we simply "can't afford free education any more" - this is rubbish. What this means is that we can't afford free education while making huge tax concessions to the rich. With a more progressive taxation system, we could afford a decent free education system (and free healthcare, decent wages, basic living conditions for all…) This argument seems particularly suspicious after the fiasco of the America's Cup!

The problem, of course, is that tertiary education is simply less of a priority than it used to be, and has been subjected to massive cuts in funding, despite the current emphasis on the urgency of producing highly skilled and innovative workers for the new "knowledge economy." University workers - both academic and general - face the same kind of attacks on their working conditions and are under immense pressure to push more students through on less money, and suffer real pay cuts along the way.

What can be done about it? Obviously the answer is mass protest, uniting both students and staff in a bid to put the emphasis back on government funding and less on the particular financial state of their own institutions. We are starting to see signs that this fight is being reinvigorated. The industrial scene is heating up - for the first time in history, staff at Otago went on strike in September last year. Even better - approximately 86 percent of members of the main university sector union (the Association of University Staff or AUS) voted to move to national bargaining in a July ballot, a process which is being implemented right now. In other words, rather than dealing with their own Vice Chancellors on campus, university staff across the nation are going to negotiate their employment contracts collectively, lending considerable scope to possibilities for the emphasis to be put back on government funding.

This is a fantastic opportunity for students and staff to UNITE AND FIGHT!