One democratic vote to say, “this is our future, and it is to be equal’
Posted in News under Education | on Oct 11 2009
Young people must vote for their right to a higher education in the coming General Elections where the Conservatives will move to raise the cap on University Tuition Fees.Currently the cap on tuition fees in England, Wales and Northern Ireland stands at £3,225, but many universities are calling for a raising of this cap or even its complete removal, claiming it would improve the quality of the education offered. The shadow Education Minister, David Willets, hinted that the Conservatives would be very much prepared to raise the cap of Tuition Fees in exchange for such a guarantee; however, this is in no way an equal trade-off.
In an education situation dependant on financial support, extra income should in theory improve services, but in reality it becomes an ever growing hill, with funding forever playing catchup with expectations. What the Conservatives will actually achieve in raising the cost of a degree is to reinforce and increase the existing social hierarchies in higher education by ensuring that financial status as much as academic achievement is a requirement for accessing a university education. We will revert to the independent fee-paying schools/ state sector scenario seen in primary and secondary education already, where those who can afford it can ‘buy’ a better education that those who cannot. It will create ‘Etonian’ like elite universities where only the financially privileged may attend, unless you are ‘blessed’ with a gracious ‘bursary’.... University for many of us is a place to start out on an equal footing with all our contemporaries, irrespective of our background; a place where everyone gets the same treatment, and everyone is expected to achieve the same goals. Everyday we hear about inequality in the work place, between genders, between races, between the able-bodied and those with disabilities, but what about the inequality in our own standards of education? In my first year university, I was among 4th year students still paying around £1000 a year for their tuition, and I asked if they had noticed any change in their education or the education of lower years after the introduction of the higher tuition fee cap, and they replied that their treatment and the treatment of the following years had not changed throughout their degree. If the Conservatives raise yet again the cost of university, all it will serve to do is push more people out of choosing higher education, and increase the average student’s debt after a 3 or 4 year degree. This next General Election, May/June 2010 at the latest, young people - the future of our country - must get up and vote for a future free from discrimination based on social background. Child Benefits, Tax Allowances, the state of the economy, may seem alienating, nothing to do with us, but of all the issues this one affects now, today and for the rest of our lives and those of our younger brothers and sisters. Signing a petition, or marching in protest, in two years’ time will be as nothing compared to this one democratic vote to say, ‘this is our future, and it is to be equal’