Youth

Leaving the home you grew up in, the people you will love forever and
experiences to look upon from afar, being an international student is no
easy task, perhaps, even more so, when you come from a small island..

On January 4th a consultation meeting at
Ashington Leisure Centre in Northumberland was held by the Lib/Dem leadership
of the County Council to "discuss" the question of its closure.  The council has to find £33m worth of cuts
this year and amongst the many services being targeted is the town’s very
popular and highly used leisure centre.

The current recession has given people a thirst for knowledge;
a desire to understand what is happening. People no longer need to be convinced
of the failure of Capitalism – they can see and experience it for themselves.
The public look to the bourgeois economists and reformist politicians for
answers and they get no explanation other than some muttering about “greedy
bankers”. This article published by a Cambridge student magazine explains what the Cambridge Marxists have to say about this.

Supporters of Socialist Appeal in Glasgow joined
Greek students in a picket of the Greek Consulate to mark the one year
anniversary of the police murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos in Athens.
The murder set off a revolt of working class youth throughout Greece
that was met with huge police repression.

The situation at the University of Arts London is part of the bigger picture of course cuts,
redundancies and deficits across the whole of the public sector in
Britain. Why should students and staff pay for the economic crisis with
their jobs and education? UAL Marxists have organised a meeting for Tuesday 24th (6pm at the student
hub, 65 Davies Street) to discuss the course cuts and redundancies that
are taking place in UAL. A serious situation is emerging, which
ultimately could affect all the students and staff at the university.
Your education, your job, the quality of your work, all are under
threat.

New
Labour, the government that introduced tuition fees and student loans in 1998 and
then narrowly passed a bill to introduce top-up fees of £3,200 per year from
2006, have recently launched a “higher education finance review” to look into
raising the cap on tuition fees (possibly up to £7000 per year) and examine the
way in which universities should be funded. The appointment of Lord Browne, a
friend of Peter Mandelson and former chief of the multinational oil-giant BP,
to chair the fees review has not done anything to encourage university
students, who already face the prospect of an accumulated debt of over £23,000
upon graduation.

Here is a short report on John McDonnell’s lecture at the ULU Marxists Meeting in London last week

Figures published today (Wed) show a continuing rise in UK unemployment,
hiting 2.47 million as at the end of August. This figure is supposed to
be lower than expected – indicating that the recession is coming to an
end – but for those involved it is still high enough – not least for the youth!

As the current economic
climate worsens the government and county councils are targeting education as a
means of saving money. Privatisation, redundancies and funding cuts are
tarnishing the education system that so many other countries strive for. Now, with tuition fees on
the increase – the yearly cap of £3,200 soon to be lifted – competition to get
into what remains of higher education is becoming progressively biased towards
only the more privileged members of society.

Between
Wednesday 23
and Friday 25
of September, supporters of Socialist Appeal could be found running a
stall outside the University of Leeds – bringing the ideas of
Marxism onto the campus. The comrades sold 24 copies of the new
Socialist
Appeal
all-colour paper over the three days as well as other literature

As
the consequences of the capitalist crisis continue to unfold before our eyes,
it is becoming clear just how much of an impact this recession is having on
education. The main focus of this article
is on just how much of an impact debt forced on parents is having on their
children’s education and therefore their future.

Students and education workers have taken action across Europe in recent months in response to the so called ‘Bologna Process’; a vicious attack on the provision of public education centred around privatising  public institutions and stripping down staff numbers and facilities to a bare minimum. In response to this there have been large demonstrations and strikes of students and workers in Austria, Italy, Spain and France. In Britain there are now proposals for a huge funding cut back at London Metropolitan University and the selling off of Strathclyde University in Glasgow, amongst other attacks.