The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), National Union of Students (NUS) and the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA) are calling upon university staff and students to participate in a National Day of Action on 20 August in support of publicly funded higher education.
We are also calling upon VET and school teachers and students, parents, employers, unionists and other members of the community to support our call to make education, including higher education, an issue in this year’s federal election. When we call for education for all – we mean from early childhood to higher degrees. Higher education should be available regardless of background or circumstance, but the costs of education keep increasing. Over one million students are now enrolled in higher education, but class sizes have almost doubled and half of the teaching is done by academics employed casually. The high quality of education we expect from our universities will suffer without better funding.
Back in April, the Labor Government cut $2.3 billion out of higher education to fund school education. Across the country there was outrage. The ‘efficiency dividend’ is leading to more staff job losses, more crowded classes and less help for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The replacement of the Student Start-up Scholarships with a loan will add to the unreasonable debt many students already face upon graduation. The Coalition pledged to support these cuts. The Labor Government, after making grand promises to higher education, cut $4 billion in two years. The Coalition is looking to students to pay for the funding gap.
We say:
Rallies have been organised in key centres with more events on campuses.
National Tertiary Education Union members at a number of universities are considering industrial action on 20 August to support enterprise bargaining negotiations on key issues including workloads and job security. The NTEU Branches at these universities have successfully conducted ballots of members and are already engaged in protected industrial action.
Contact Meghan B. Hopper on: 0421 807 303 / president@capa.edu.au
For more information go to www.nteu.org.au, www.capa.edu.au, www.nus.org.au
