universities
University news: sackings, industrial action
There is a lot going on in Victoria’s higher education sector. Some of the largest ever mass-redundancies in Australian university history, as well as a growing mood for industrial action over university administration refusals to seriously collectively bargain.
Deakin
Staff at Deakin University want a new collective agreement. The NTEU has produced a video explaining what is at stake and why staff need to join the union.
Deakin staff speak about collective bargaining from NTEU Victoria on Vimeo.
Victoria University
Victoria University Vice-Chancellor announced on 17 October the largest ever mass-redundancy in Australian university history.
The NTEU is running a campaign to protest the redundancies and make the university return to the bargaining table. Like Deakin, VU senior management have refused to seriously bargain.
You can support the staff at Victoria University by sending an email to the Vice Chancellor.
Labor repudiates USU
This Herald report on Labor’s student unions policy seems to me to be highly confused. The core fact is that Labor has decided not to reintroduce up-front fees.
This is then written up as ‘Labor deserts student unions’ and ‘Labor has dumped its commitment to universal student unionism’. Yet this is not borne out by the article, which says Labor is considering tacking compulsory student fees onto HECS, which would restore USU and make it a vastly fairer system to boot, more equitable than either the old-style USU or VSU. Of course, it remains to be seen whether this policy will get up, but it doesn’t seem Labor has deserted a commitment to student unionism just yet. To do so would after all make no sense, given the historical function of the student unions as breeding grounds for Labor activists and funders of Labor campaigns.
Update: Well, as dibo has pointed out in the comments, the ABC has now reported that Labor is not considering the HECS route, thus pointlessly brushing off the student unionism that trained a generation of labo(u)r aristocrats. So it looks like the Herald headlines were correct, but unwarranted according to the information they were feeding the readers. Or the ABC’s got it wrong. Plus there’s still time for a u-turn (please?).
Silly Season 2007
For those who don’t regularly or closely follow the activities of the National Union of Students and its factions, you may be interested in this Sydney Morning Herald article.
UNIVERSITY students have voted to topple Labor’s dominance of their national union for the first time in its history, in the most significant demonstration that the party is losing its stranglehold on the student movement.
For an insider’s perspective, check the history of Student Unity’s wikipedia article.
Interesting development, particularly given that NUS’s “tradition” of shoveling massive amounts of money into Federal election marginal seat campaigning could now be under threat with a Greens-aligned Gen Sec…
Is NUS better without a Student Unity General Secretary? What will having a Greens Gen Sec mean for NUS?
A Maoist Education
LYNN BELL: In a provocative speech to be delivered today, the Education Minister Julie Bishop says state and territory bureaucracies should be stripped of their responsibility for setting school curriculum.
She says ideologues within state education authorities, have hijacked school curriculum and some of the themes emerging are straight from Chairman Mao.
I don’t know about this, how about we ask Chairman Mao on education and training?
As for the training courses, the main objective should still be to raise the level of technique in marksmanship, bayoneting grenade-throwing and the like and the secondary objective should be to raise the level of tactics, while special emphasis should be laid on night operations.
Well I certainly missed out in high school, perhaps I should have demanded that my parents have been born richer and sent me to the rifle-range equipped Kings.
In any case the very last word on education, art, culture and science really should go to The Great Helmsman:
We think that it is harmful to the growth of art and science if administrative measures are used to impose one particular style of art or school of thought and to ban another. Questions of right and wrong in the arts and sciences should be settled through free discussion in artistic and scientific circles and through practical work in these fields. They should not be settled in summary fashion.
Vouchers and Merit
Everybody wants to see more funding for schools, better teachers and better pay for teachers, right?
The Beginning of the End
Today marks the beginning of the end of my University career, as I handed in my final honours essay: “Aspects of Stalinism: Consent on the Politburo, 1922-1936”. By the end of this year, I will have graduated after a pleasant six years as a student.
Over the fold, for those that are interested, is my final essay (be warned: it is about 5,000 words in length).
Finally, a worthwhile campaign from NUS
You may not have read the Education section in today’s Age, particularly you Sydneyites (in which case, refer to the SMH).
With VSU being implemented from July 1 this year, Universities are coming under pressure from their campus student organisations and the National Union of Students to guarantee funding for student services, representation and advocacy.
The Power Of A Search Function
Wayne Swan on the budget, showing the power of Word’s search function:
[The Treasurer] failed to utter the words productivity, participation, education or the current account deficit even once.
Oh, and also worth noting about education, skills training and tertiary education, is that quite apart from the abolition of a few good programmes there is still massive underinvestment in universities. Making students pay the shortfall doesn’t cut it when everyone’s crying out for skilled graduates from the most expensive courses.
Andrew Norton makes the argument with which I agree (though he has a radically different solution to it):
…of course the system as a whole remains a mess. The core financial problem - the fact that universities cannot cover costs for Commonwealth-supported students - remains untouched.
Choice, Bro
Sometimes the only way to convince people unfrightened of the new IR régime of its actual implications is to use their own language.
Silly Season
That’s right folks. It’s NUS Season.
Once again, the various student activists, hacks and power-brokers converge on Carlton for a week of caucusing, drinking and politicking. Deals are negotiated, cut and broken. Factions form and split.
My dire pronunciations that the 2004 NUS (National Union of Students) National Conference would be the last turned out to be as accurate as a poor Nostradamus reading.