Mass Action To Defeat Fees

NUS must organise

Mass Action To Defeat Fees

  • No to top-up fees

  • No to a graduate tax

  • Scrap all tuition fees

  • A living grant for all students

  • For a system that puts education before the profits of big
    business and the rich

IN 2006, students whose parents earn the average income
will have to pay 70% of their fees, instead of the 25% they pay now – according
to a recent study by the House of Commons Library.

Zena Awad

New Labour’s agenda for turning our universities and
colleges into a market for privatisation and selling off our education to big
business is going to hit working class students hardest of all.

When it seems that you can’t find anyone who is actually in
favour of top-up fees why has the NUS failed to effectively oppose this Bill?
Had they called and campaigned for a national day of walk-outs and occupations
on 27 January (when the second vote took place) and called on the trade unions
to join in, the government may not have won over the five MPs needed to get the
bill passed!

Socialist Students are campaigning for mass action to be
nationally co-ordinated and built for on the ground for the day of the third
reading, Wednesday 31 March.

While calling and campaigning for the backing of NUS,
Socialist Students are fighting independently against tuition fees through
defending non-paying students from expulsion, organising direct action against
any attacks on the right to free education and making links with teachers and
lecturers in their struggle against cuts in universities and colleges.

These campaigns have engaged both students and workers in
the fight against fees and marketisation of education and have had support from
tens of thousands in local communities.

Socialist Students and Socialist Party members, through
campaigning against student debt, poverty wages and against the war and
occupation of Iraq, expose the big business interests behind the government’s
policies. These policies are carried out in the interest of the capitalists who
own the resources in society – they want to make even more money by owning and
controlling our education so they can sell it back to us for profit.

Tony Blair says there is no money to publicly fund the
universities and colleges but he is willing to spend billions on an imperialist
war in Iraq!

Socialist Students link the need to fight and win on these
issues to the need to change society as a whole.

Capitalism is a nightmare for students and young workers
across the world. Socialism is about using the world’s resources for the
benefit of the majority – for us – and not for the minority of millionaires and
billionaires who back the likes of Blair. If you’re a student looking for an
alternative then join Socialist Students and fight to change the world.

Lobby of Parliament

Wednesday 31 March

Further details contact:

020 8558 7947