As many will already know, following the UK Con-dem government’s Comprehensive Spending Review, universities in the UK are facing massive cuts to their core funding. Coupled with this, parliament will be voting next week on a bill that will enable university’s to hike their tuition fees massively. This will effectively be the final nail in the coffin of a rich tradition of state funded higher education in the UK, closing down opportunities of university education for huge sections of our population, and seeing the creation of an increasingly unhealthy hierarchy in British universities and even some potential job losses and university closures in the years to come.
Faced by this, students across the UK have been occupying university buildings over the last few weeks, and continue to do so. Occupations have occurred and are occurring in:
University of Edinburgh, UCL, University of the West of England, Cambridge, University of East London, Newcastle University, SOAS, University of Brighton, and at my own institution the University of Sheffield.
If you feel like sending messages of support to the Sheffield occupiers (which are hugely helpful to them), the email address is: occupation.sheffield@gmail.com
There’s also a message blog here: sheffieldoccupationsupport.tumblr.com/
