Build a mass campaign to fight university cuts

Scottish universities are facing an unprecedented funding crisis. Years of budget cuts by the UK and Scottish governments have been added to by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Scottish Universities face a funding shortfall of between £500-700 million this year. Maddie Jamieson and Oisin Duncan, members of Socialist Students, look at what this could mean for students and staff, and call for a mass campaign to be built to defend education.

Coronavirus could be potentially a huge factor in the eventual decrease of overseas students, including from China, which form a major contribution to the university funding model.

Up to 50 institutions across the UK are facing bankruptcy in the near future and an estimated 300,000 jobs could be lost as a result.

While Dundee University has made the promise that face-to-face learning will start at the beginning of October, this promise may depend on the response to the virus. The university funds could deplete further perhaps with a number of first-year students deferring due to the cost or to a fear missing out on the real experience.

Fees for UK and international students may also be affected by a number of cancellations and delays on the essential qualifications needed for the students. The release of predicted results for school exams and assessments may be delayed, and may also be non-indicative of the student’s performance.

As well as this, the TOEFL English Language test which is required of all non-English speaking students coming to a university in the UK, is being repeatedly cancelled for a number of areas, meaning that even more overseas students may miss their requirements narrowly or be forced to defer.

The “creative solutions” which are being called for will no doubt involve some restructuring, with the possibility of mergers on the horizon, but will also take the form of finding more ways to exploit staff on campus.

UWS, for example, have announced plans for a 10% across the board cut in funding. There’s a high likelihood that many post-graduates on casualised teaching contracts will be either sacked or exploited as universities begin to lean on their casual staff more in the future, because they can pay them less for the same work.

This financial squeeze on universities could lead to a deterioration in the standard of education given to students, if the more profitable areas of research and conference hosting are seen as a way to keep the sector afloat. 

If the situation becomes truly dire, there is nothing stopping management from simply sacking staff en masse; the University of Glasgow has come in for harsh but warranted criticism recently after a number of incidents of mass redundancies.

Both student unions on campus, the GUU and the QMU, have fired over 60 staff in total rather than keeping them on furlough. Most of these staff were former or current students at Glasgow Uni – what a demonstration of the ‘business-first’ mentality at work in modern universities! 

Lowering overheads has also impacted those aforementioned casualised teaching staff; teachers on one-year contracts were informed early last month they would not see these extended, just a few short months before the beginning of term. All of these shameful cost-cutting tactics beg the following questions; what are the priorities of university management and where is all the money going? 

At a time when Glasgow University is involved in several construction projects, it seems the only explanation for their treatment of loyal workers is a misplaced focus on puffing up the prestige of the institution with shiny new buildings.

These decisions were of course taken by chancellors and vice-chancellors, whose average salaries reach upwards of £300,000! This is an example of toxic pride and greed of those at the top making the decisions. 

There is no reason at all why universities couldn’t be run in a more open, democratic way.

If the books were opened up for inspection by elected student representatives and the trade unions on campus, then those bodies could make the decisions about where funding goes in transparent discussion with the people who actually keep these institutions running.

It’s imperative unions and students fight for democratic ownership and operation of the education sector, along with all the commanding areas of the economy; if you don’t own it you can’t control it!

Socialist Students fight for:

• Return to campus for learning or accommodation must be with the democratic oversight of trade unions and student unions to ensure health and safety. 
• A united campaign of trade unions and students to oppose any and all cuts to funding. No job cuts. Open the books to democratic inspection by the campus unions and to democratically elected committees of students. Show us where the money has gone.
• Fight for fully funded and free education! No return of tuition fees! For a university education system which is run for the benefit of society, not for profit – reverse all cuts and marketisation, replace student loans with living grants, and cancel all outstanding student debt.
• End overcrowding on the university campuses! Vice chancellors and university bosses are chasing profits – for democratic trade union and student oversight over the applications process to ensure decent education for students and manageable workload for campus workers. Any increase in student numbers to be met with at least a proportionate increase in funding for teaching resources, services on campus, and affordable accommodation for students.
• For a socialist alternative to capitalism. Bring the 150 biggest banks and monopolies into democratic public ownership, under the management and control of the working class, with compensation to the shareholders only for proven need. For a democratic socialist plan of production to provide free education and a future for all.