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(*slogan stolen from a house mate who is a helluva lot better at slogans than me.)
Well, I'm glad that thousands of students turned out to protest the governments proposal to increase university fees by a silly amount of money. I don't care how many times you tell me that they're not upfront fees, we still have to pay what money we borrow back - this is the part that puts people off folks! 21% of my wages if I get a job that pays £21,000 per annum weighs heavily on all students' and prospective students' minds. And, frankly, no body wants or likes to be in debt.(I wanted to go but I have an essay that needs writing. Typical.)
It's just shame that whenever I hear about it on the news the headline is about the violence that occurred between the students and the police, and I think that it's a shame as I believe it detracts from what we were protesting about in the first place.
That being said, I'm surprised that the police and all involved in organising the march didn't think that something like this would happen as it is a subject people feel passionately and justifiably angry about and it is inevitable that some would choose to express this through breaking things. It's sad that people will associate students with breaking things though because on the whole, we're not like that. Promise! A true expression of English studenty-ness, in my mind, would mean that London's road work signs and traffic cones would have, by now, new homes all over the country.
Personally, I'm a bit divided by the issue. The cynical side feels that the government will do what ever the hell it wants with fees, and no amount of window smashing will convince them otherwise. Still, the larger, more optimistic side hopes that the UK government can take into account the voice of the masses (mine included, so screw you cynicism ) into account in it's decision making.
I'm surprised people worry about it in the UK. In Aus, most students seem to have this 'oh it's one day in the future and I'll probably never earn enough to have to pay it back anyway...' attitude. Since it cuts in at $30,000 pa you have to wonder why you'd bother even going to uni if you thought you'd never earn that!
ReplyDeleteUni protests are strange things. My sister's uni was going to cut 48 staff and, after the protests dropped it to 32. I'm cynical enough to think that they were probably actually planning to only cut about 32 in the first place.