Dear students, and staff of SOAS,

Today the University of Bradford Union meet to discuss the deportations of cleaners at the School of African and Oriental Studies, London. We want to send our solidarity greeting to you.

We were both shocked and appalled to hear last week that the University had been complicit in allowing members of their staff to be intimidated, detained and deported whilst working at SOAS.

The fact that the University targeted underpaid cleaners many of whom are active in working to fight for better widest is outrageous.

As students and researches at the University of Bradford we feel that our Universities has a duty to protect all members of its community. The fact that the your school not only refused to protect its staff but was complicit in deporting ill and pregnant staff is outrageous.

We fully support actions such as the present occupation to fight for the rights for these workers. Students and staff must unite to work together in creating a community that is safe and secure for each other.

We send our solidarity with those who have been part of the campaign to stop deportations while out thoughts are on those who are being deported and other staff who are being intimidated by these kind of actions. We wish the occupation all the success.

We want to make it clear to all Universities but particular to SOAS that the behaviour of senior management not acceptable and have called for them in a separate letter to support their staff and the occupation.

Yours, in solidarity and friendship.
For and on behalf of the University of Bradford Union



Lloyd Russell-Moyle
Union Secretary – Treasurer 2007-09
Vice President (Societies) 2009-10

Labels: Education Not for Sale, ENS, International Politics, Universy of Bradford, Universy of Bradford Union

On a cold February morning about 60 students from Bradford set off to London to make their mark in the start of the free education ahead of the government review on University fees.

Labels: education, Education Not for Sale, ENS, National Union of Students, UBU, Universy of Bradford, Universy of Bradford Union

On Monday 9th March about 40 Students gathered to hear Tamar Katz talk about her experiences being jailed for refusing to fight in the Israeli army. Tamar, a high school student, was drafted in to the army but told her story about how a group of school students and her joined a small but growing movement of conscientious objector in Israel.

Following massive demonstrations and a wave of student occupations against Israel’s war in Gaza, the University of Bradford Union, supported by Education not for Sale (a student anti-capitalist lobby group) joint up with other Unions and also Alliance of Workers liberty to host part of the national tour with Tamar, one of the Shministim, Israeli high school students jailed for refusing to fight in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Tamar said “I was 16 when the second war in Lebanon began and this made me re-consider the prospect of fighting in the IDF after I graduated from school. My family were “ordinary” — not political, and we did not talk about these things at home. I wanted to find out more about the political situation and to think through my ideas. I began to work for an organisation which ran educational initiatives in working-class neighbourhoods. This was my first time in a politicised environment. Through it I met many left wing people. I moved into a collective house and began to get involved with a group called New Profile (an anti-militaristic feminist organisation).

She spoke about her experience in jail, how her family reacted and the pace of change in Israeli. There was much debate about boycotts and their effectiveness and most people reported a successful event. Tamar talked about their work with other organisations such as Combatants for Peace

The Union, with the Peace Studies department is working to bring Bassam Aramin, Co-Founder of a joint Israeli-Palestinian organization, Combatants for Peace to Bradford in the next academic year. He has been accepted at the University to study a masters but needs the fund to come to the University. We will keep you updated with information and whether the University agrees to a fee waiver for Bassam.

Labels: Education Not for Sale, International Politics, Israel, Palestine, Peace Studies, UBU, Universy of Bradford, Universy of Bradford Union

Now, more than ever, the right to education is important and it’s not just about giving people a fun few years at University. It’s about the “economy, stupid!” (As Bill Clinton once said) and most of all its about giving outcomes that achieve justice and equality.

In this article I will explain why free university education is important. I want to dispel the myth that free education is unachievable, and call on Bradford University to be the leader in moving the debate forward. Apart from the fact that education is a right (under the UN articles of

Human Rights), apart from being something that drives the economy, it is something much more important – it provides a more stable society. As more people achieve higher levels of education our communities become more. I’m not saying that with a University education racism, sexism and homophobia are abolished, but that through greater life and educational experience people have a greater understanding of the world and themselves and are more likely to accept others.

Ignoring that, the question comes down to whether students should themselves “contribute”. After the shambles that was up-front fees, the government changed the system so that either you qualified for free University Education based on your parent’s income or you took out a loan and you paid it back later on. This continued the relience on not only parents but also assumes that everyone receives support from parents.

This whole idea was based on a piece of flawed research, which suggested that your income “potential” was greater after you had gone to University. Infact, it now looks like most people will never pay back the loan which now has higher interest than a high street back loan (most students will pay something like £60 a month just on interest). If everyone benefits through a better society surly everyone should contribute? Many students will leave University with over £20,000 in debt and even if you have stayed at home to reduce your costs you could end up with over £10k to pay back.

How can it be fair? Something that is a human right, something that makes society more peaceful and most of all gives us doctors, nurses, teachers and engineers to name but a few, surely should be available free to everyone.

The system is clearly not working – it needs to change. The government agreed to review the system of fees in 2009 and now the review is about to start. Some Universities are calling for the fees to be increased to whatever level they want, while others are keeping quiet.

Bradford Student Union has a long history of standing for justice, standing for free education. When fees were introduced we supported people who protested and refused to pay; we marched, and by our side was our Vice Chancellor Colin Bell - the then VC - who spoke in the media. He stood up for justice and history will prove him right.

So here’s the challenge to our Vice Chancellor now (Mark Cleary). He says he has his “personal opinions” but wont speak up for free University Education. He says, “the debate is about what level they should rise to” and “a new system isn’t on the table”. Recently I challenged him to set the agenda, put free education on the table. So far he has declined; he doesn’t want to stick his head above anyone else.

The question surely should be ‘what will Bradford lose for speaking out’? The answer is, nothing (apart from keeping the Government and the VC’s chums in other Universities happy). What will Bradford gain? Everything! We would keep our reputation of being a University that leads, that doesn’t just let the big boys boss us around.

In the VC introduction speech to students he says, “it’s the mavericks, the eccentrics that change the world and that’s what we want to foster at Bradford”. Quite right Mark, so lets have a little more of the maverick from you and a little less of the sheep.

On the 25th February students are invited to London for a national demonstration against fees, for grants and for better paid and resourced lectures. That’s free for all students, home, international, well off or not, paid through tax from those who can afford it. Just a small amount that has been given to the banks could pay for it! I will be marching and making a difference, and I invite every student from Bradford to join me. At only £1.50 for a return ticket to London you can’t refuse.

This is a global movement and we are achieving change. Education should be free from the Gaza Strip to the Rocky Mountains. Students are starting the fight back. In France they fought and won against laws that discriminated against student workers. In parts of Germany, Universities, this year, are again free after students took to the streets and fought for free education. In Greece, after student unions battled to get accommodation and food subsidised, victory was declared last year.

So now that we know why education should be free, that it can be free and Bradford University has a history of calling for free education, why don’t you become part of a movement that changes history? Come and join us. Students, lecturers, staff and even Mark Cleary the VC are welcome to make education better.

Lloyd Russell-Moyle
Tickets for the Wednesday 25th National Demonstration can be bought online at www.ubuonline.co.uk/demo or at the Union reception. or for local contacts cheek out http://studentdemo2009.org.uk

Labels: education, Education Not for Sale, UBU, Universy of Bradford, Universy of Bradford Union

Over the last few weeks, and going in to months now occupations about Gaza have been happening up and down the country. This amazing act of solidarity has seen almost 20 Universities occupied from Scotland to Brighton even spreading to New York.

The movement needed to come together - share ideas, and exchange views. That was what I thought Stop the War Coalition was hosting at their student meeting. Unfortunately that's not what some of the StWC comrades thought - to them it had been billed as an event to build StW groups on campus on the back of occupations.

At some points of the meeting this confusion was used to hijack all occupations to create a national StW committee. Whether this confusion was deliberately instigated or was just due to the mix of people at the meeting I will (for the sake of argument) take the latter.

Due to a reluctance of some occupations to join this committee and a number of people calling for a further discussion of how we build from the occupations, Sussex comrades lead the call for a further meeting. This was to discuss further building of the occupations network (in a loose way) and to this end I agree so with other ENS comrades backed the calls and helped instage a discussion at the end of the Conference only for it to be later hijacked by Revo and other factions.

We meet at ULU (the University of London Union) to further discuss what to do next. However the issues got inflated and confusion entailed.

I realise that the StW needed to consolidate its own networks and if only this had became clear at the conference then maybe we would not have needed this further discussion. I fully support that every campus should have an active Stop the War Group, and in the understanding agree that they need a national body/ committee elected by branches - this however had not been clear.

By the end of the side meting at ULU, I don't know if people were clearer or more confused by what had happened. Frustration as always at these meetings had grown and people wanted to
leave.

I have a lot of respect for comrades from all the divide. For example Rob Owen, although lambasted, often puts in valuable inputs, and although I disagree I think that without the factions in some sense we would be weaker.

With heat rising I don't think that other appreciated these "inputs"and a few started walking out - factions trying to get their own way, the meeting ended with a understanding that some organising needs to come out of the occupations (the same situation that we were in at the start !)

If the meeting will motivate people to go back and mobilise, if the meeting means that people communicate on the email list and we get moment for a national day of action on Palestine then it would al be worth it - if not it was just another factional bitching session.

Labels: education, Education Not for Sale, International Politics, National Union of Students, Palestine

Please support this statement and get involved in organising the demonstration I am part of Education not for Sale a campaigning and anti-capitalist part of the student movement in the UK to find out more then please go to http://www.free-education.org.uk

Education – a right not a privilege

No to fees – A living grant for every student – Tax the rich to fund education

For a national demonstration at the start of 2009

This academic year could see the lifting of the £3,000 cap on tuition fees in higher education. Meanwhile, student debt and poverty are already spiralling, students face soaring costs of living and the market dominates our education system from school to college to university.

After years of underfunding for post-16 education, the Government brought in tuition fees and then top-up fees. Worsening the already existing inequalities in higher education, fees are greatly accelerating the development of a competitive market between universities, with a tier of well-funded and prestigious institutions and another of less prestigious, underfunded ones. Along with the absence of decent student grants, they rule out the possibility of seriously expanding access, force most students who do get to university into debt and push many into casualised, low-paid jobs. Lifting the cap will, of course, make all this worse. Meanwhile most further education students have always paid fees and never had grants.

Top-up fees will be in the headlines this year, but fees are not the only issue. Though Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish university students studying in their own nation, and FE students under 19, do not have to pay fees, they do not receive a living grant and are also forced into poverty and debt.

International students are exploited to subsidise higher education institutions through higher and higher fees, while postgraduate study is limited to a small elite through a more and more restrictive funding system.

Women, black, LGBT and disabled students are affected and disadvantaged disproportionately by the growth in student poverty and debt.

As our education is commodified and most institutions are run more and more for profit, the wages, conditions and rights of our teachers and other education workers are also coming under attack.

We believe that NUS is allowing the Government to get away with these deeply unpopular policies. This year, despite the review of the cap on fees, NUS is not organising a national demonstration – not even one for its needlessly bureaucratic “alternative funding model”, let alone the abolition of fees and living grants that students need. Its planned “day of action” – scheduled for 5 November, the day after the US presidential election, hardly the best time to get attention – is a start, but inadequate.

That is why we, students’ union officers and student activists, are seeking to organise a national demonstration in the first three months of 2009, around the following demands:

- No raising of the cap on top-up fees;
- Halt and reverse the growth in international students’ fees;
- Abolish all fees in HE and FE – free education for all;
- A living grant for every student over 16 – at least £150 a week;
- Stop and reverse marketisation in our schools, colleges and universities – tax the rich and corporations to fund education.

We are seeking to organise this demonstration in alliance with trade union activists fighting back against wage freezes, job cuts and privatisation; with other anti-cuts and privatisation campaigns; with young people’s and children’s organisations; and with others who believe that education should be open to all as a human right, not a privilege open to a minority based on wealth.

We call on NUS and autonomous campaigns within NUS to support the demonstration.

* Please add your or your union or campaigning group’s name to this statement by emailing education.not.for.sale@gmail.com.

Signatories so far (all pc):

Aled Dilwyn Fisher, LSESU general secretary
Heather Shaw, Sheffield College SU president
Martha Kunda, Sheffield College SU general secretary
Lloyd Russell-Moyle, University of Bradford Union secretary-treasurer
Maryam Ahmed, Leeds University Union equality and diversity officer
Adam Farrell, University of Sussex SU education officer
Joseph O’Connor Meldau, University of Sussex SU campaigns officer
Alan Bailey, University of Salford SU VP representation; NUS LGBT Committee
Sofie Buckland, NUS Women’s Committee; NUS NEC 2006-8
Gemma Short, Laura Schwartz and Evangeline Ramsey, NUS Women’s Committee
Kath McMahon, Edinburgh University Students’ Association council
Alex Wood, Aston Students’ Guild equalities officer; People & Planet Management Committee
Chris Marks and Stephen Wood, Hull Left Forum
Jennie Killip, University of Manchester SU women’s officer
Ellie Reyland, University of Manchester SU welfare officer

Labels: education, Education Not for Sale, ENS, National Union of Students, UBU, Universy of Bradford Union

I've just come out of the University Council meeting where the Union presented it's way forward for both services and finances.

It was I would say a success but it still has its dangers along in the process of greater collaboration for the Union and the University. I have always believed in reform I think that our Union need to be changed to reflect the students of the future, I believe that we need to fashion a new world.

But this is different from the NUS proposals for their internal reforms and this is why:

Five years ago an organisations which I had been one of the founding members of was going though many changes - as members we voted a no confidence is some of the leadership and the AGM had t be cancelled as it fell in to farce. The Trustee's had asked the membership to approve the auditors, accounts and them without any prior documentation.

This was due just as much to neivaty as it was to democratic deficit, our organisation was only 3 years old and we where still finding our feet. That year we sent through some real hard reforms, things changed, they still are not perfect but the members became part of the governance, they controlled the organisation.

Meanwhile a year later the other national youth body (British Youth Council) was going under an equally difficult reform. Reform that was pushed through by the chair of the organisations. Now I have a lot of respect in what they did in re-forming the BYC, but there is a big problem. At first the measures where needed, the organisation had lost staff, moral and could even end up shut. Members spent their time arguing over petty issues rather than achieve change.

Neither situation was great, but as a member of both we felt like we had made a difference to the UKYP - we had set it up and would run it with our youth workers. At BYC the reforms where different they weren't from a ground swell of people, its wasn't a grass roots movement it was an academic exercise in "good governance".

five years later and if you went to either board they would have the same "power" they are as undemocratic as each other (the UKYP got a little more democratic and the BYC a little less). but one was lead by the members and one wasn't, its the direction that we must look at.

Its the same with NUS, a project developed in a office will always fail, a plan in board meetings will never succeed if its not brought to the members to bring them along. NUS governance needs changing, a "review" is needed, but it should sent NUS on a direction of opening up, becoming less centred on the head office and more on the students, instead we have something that cements power, decides policy by officers not members and sets the agenda on what will get people better jobs not members better lives.

Yes reform is needed but only when its done with the membership not without.

Labels: Education Not for Sale, ENS, National Union of Students, Participation, UBU, UK Youth Parliament, Universy of Bradford, Universy of Bradford Union

At the first committee meeting of the new ENS we discussed things that actually matter. ENS was reinvigorated at its “Reclaim the Campus” Conference held last month at Birkbeck College the conference defended in to factional infighting, leading to me calling for us to save the left before we reclaim the campus (see previous NUS entries).
This meeting however got to the point, not only that I was left feeling with a sense of direction, enthusiasm and passion. The committee meeting which was billed as an open meeting had most committee member plus about 5 others who where not elected to the committee but wanted to see some action. I went as I was in Brighton and hadn’t made it back to Bradford the night before due to a headache. Making the most of this detour to my plans I thought that I would get stuck in.
The meeting was first of all held in an atmosphere of open and pleasant debate. There where people from different backgrounds attending from trots to anarchists and the others in between. I ended up being duped in to becoming the Treasurer! I always love becoming the money man, and seeing that at the moment I’m doing it for three organisations, why not add another to my bow!
More importantly this meeting convinced me it was something that I want to be involved with. I think that the left needs to be organised and united in the student moment but have been so unhappy in the past when its has seemed to be dominated by political groups.
I may be a labour party member and believe the labour needs to organisations but I’m by no means bounded by any party, I think that my students must come first. That is why I’m convinced that ENS is the body to lead the left forwards. I’m not saying that they (I should say we now I guess), should take on the forces such as SWP/Respect but that we should be the bridge between them and the unorganised left.
The meeting discussed the importance of a conference to gather a plan for action, it talked about direct action and protest and it most of all talked about the need to work with others. We must play a role, a facilitating role and sometimes take a second seat to the larger groups but we must unite everyone to fight fees.
I’m convinced that not only students but pupils, young people and children must also take a stand. We must build a coalitions of young people who will be effected by fees as well as those presently paying them.
The meetings not perfect and we probably talked to much on some issues and could have been better on others, but we are getting there. We will work our way and achieve victory – we have been reclaimed!.. …nor now.

Labels: education, Education Not for Sale, ENS, National Union of Students, Universy of Bradford Union