Socialist Students meeting prepares for new term

After an academic year which has seen hundreds of thousands of students and young people come to the streets in protest, the Socialist Students national meeting on 3 July was a brilliant opportunity for activists to come together to discuss the lessons of this movement.

Two sessions were held, the first discussing aspects of the attacks on education and the student movement and the second an organisational session.

Socialist Students correctly predicted that students, facing the trebling of tuition fees, draconian education cuts and the scrapping of EMA student payments would be forced to fight back. We were the first organisation to make the call for student strikes and walkouts.

Socialist Students members played an important role in organising the huge student protests at the end of 2010. Also, we raised the demand for democracy and accountability of different organising groups within the movement.

In the new academic year, the cap on university places will remain or could even be extended and we could see the unchecked expansion of private universities and the backdoor privatisation of state universities.

We need mass student support for strikes of education workers as they continue in the autumn. Let's make 5 November, when the Jarrow March for Jobs arrives in central London and marches into Trafalgar Square, the date of the next national demonstration against fees and education cuts.

We discussed the importance of Socialist Students having campaign stalls throughout university freshers' weeks. These should advertise introductory meetings that discuss who we are and what our ideas are.

Socialist Students will hit the ground running in the new term, and with our energy, activity and ideasm is uniquely placed on campuses to offer leadership.

Ian Pattison and Alex Moore

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