Stuart Munckton,
Edward Ashscoft &
Jason Cahill
The campaign by students to oppose university administrations moving to increase fees has started to take off and spread from one campus to another.
Last December, ignoring public opposition, the federal Coalition government succeeded in having its Higher Education Support Act passed by the Senate. The act enables university administrations — starved of adequate funding over a number of years by Labor and Coalition governments — to increase Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) fees by up to 25%. It also allows them to increase the number of full-fee-paying students by up to 35%.
Since the beginning of the year, university councils have begun voting to take advantage of the new legislation to hike up fees. The university councils at Sydney University, Deakin University, Newcastle University, Swinburne University, La Trobe University, the Queensland University of Technology and Griffith University have voted to increase HECS fees to the full amount allowed by the legislation.
Since the beginning of the campus year, students have staged protest rallies, blockades and occupations at universities around the country whenever councils have met to vote to increase fees.
On March 7, police were called to break up a blockade of 250 students to enable a Newcastle University Senate meeting to go ahead. At the Victorian College of the Arts, students occupied the council room for six hours to force the cancellation of the meeting.
The first victory for students occurred when the Flinders University Senate met on March 17 to recommend an increase in HECS fees. One hundred students stormed the building and successfully shut the senate meeting down. The students continued the occupation until the next day, when the vice chancellor accepted the students' demands.
The VC accepted the students' right to view the university's financial records, a full consultation with staff and students before any council vote on fees, and that the council hold its meetings during the semester rather than between semesters.
These concessions inspired student activists around the country.
In the week after the Flinders University occupation, more university councils met to vote to increase HECS fees.
On March 22, 500 students at the Clayton campus of Monash University rallied to stop the university council voting for a 25% increase in HECS fees and an increase in full-fee paying places to 35%.
While the students attempted an occupation of the administration building to disrupt the meeting, the council meeting went ahead and voted for a 25% fee increase.
Rhonda Galbally, a university councillor, resigned the following day in disgust at the council's decision. Galbally, the founding chief executive of Vic Health, told the March 23 Melbourne Age that the vote "was rammed through with no discussion".
On March 25, 1000 students again rallied on the Clayton campus, demanding that the decision to increase fees be overturned and that the university council delegate the authority to make any decision on fee increases to an open, mass meeting of staff and students. About 200 students forced their way into the building despite attempts by the police to blockade the entrance.
The occupation ended after two hours with no agreement having been reached between students and the university administration and the police calling in reinforcements to break the occupation.
Monash Student Association education officer Angie Wong told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly that the student activists are also demanding an investigation into financial mismanagement at the university.
Liz Thompson, the elected media spokesperson for the student occupiers, told GLW that staff and students will meet on March 30 to discuss future protest action.
On the same day as the Clayton occupation, 500 angry students at the University of Queensland blockaded the building where the UQ Senate was to meet to vote on the fee hike as well as increasing full-fee paying places to 35%. The blockade was successful in preventing the senate from reaching quorum.
Unable to break the spirited blockade, some of the senate members who could not enter the building regrouped in a secret venue. Despite not having quorum, they suspended the senate's standing orders and set up a teleconference with the senate members in the blockaded building. The "meeting" voted in favour of the fee increase.
The blockade was organised by the UQ Education Action Group (EAG). Students from the Queensland University of Technology and Griffith University also participated in the blockade, along with a large contingent from the National Tertiary Education Union.
Ewan Saunders, an activist in the UQ EAG and a member of the Resistance socialist youth organisation, described blockade as evidence that "students don't agree that education is something that should be paid for. It was fantastic to see so many people standing up for the right of students to access affordable education."
Student activists across the country are organising for a national day of protest against the fee hikes, which has been set for March 31. Called by the National Union of Students (NUS), the day of protests will involve cross-campus rallies.
Students on the regional Monash Gippsland campus are planning to boycott lectures and tutorials for the day.
NUS education officer Paul Coats told GLW that the March 31 day of protest should be used by students as a "launching pad" to build the biggest possible movement to defeat the attempts by university administrations to increase fees.
"There a number of campuses where the councils have yet to meet", Coats said. "There, the movement has an opportunity to build on the successes of previous protests and build the largest possible blockades and occupations to stop the vote from going ahead.
"Where the council has already voted to increase fees, the movement needs to build on the momentum that the blockades and occupations have created to keep the fight going to overturn the decisions. Monash shows what is possible — the protest more than doubled in size in three days after the council voted to increase fees."
Saunders summed the mood of an increasing number of students: "Students are simply not willing to put up with ever increasing fees and ever decreasing quality of education. We are going to fight, and we are going to keep fighting until we win!"
[The authors are members of the socialist youth organisation Resistance and the Socialist Alliance.]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, March 31, 2004.
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