9th December 2010, 01:54 PM
this is not a black and white issue - however the vote is....
here are my reasons for NO;
1 - a completely biassed apposition to ANY Troy led policy (grrrr!! - waves tattered Red Flag, handed down through several generations)
2- more logically....as with otehr issues, the problem goes far beyond money shuffling. ... What is university For?, how has it changed over the last 25 years?, is it good for the country to have so many graduates? what are these expensive course delivering? are there alternative ways to educate young people? should there be more support for specifically vocational and polytechnic type couyrses (perhapes not degrees)? will students get 'value for money'? how will this be assessed?
3- how do we justify and fund pure research and academia, if tighter scrutiny is put in direct industrial/economic benefits? - where does this leave archaeology (and comparable disciplines)?
Much as i hope this vote will plit the coalition, i strongly suspect that the issue has been revved up as a distraction from other ongoing governmental changes (or lack of).... in particular by forcing the students out on protest early on this issue the effect of more general protest can me softened - particularity as students are an easy demographic to ridicule, and often lack large scale impact/organisation/participation - thus the public becomes bored of protesters, and collective action spread thin.
Take for example the minister (cant remember which one) who specifically stated that he would NOT support ANY proposal offered by protesters - it was his 'duty' to oppose any policy that was not through official routes.
Also the various rhetoric from many politicians about how student protesters should be condemned, and that democratic voting was the only acceptable method.....
Have these people forgotten how it was we came by this so called parliamentary democracy?
"A riot is a bottom the voice of the unheard" - Martin Luther King.
here are my reasons for NO;
1 - a completely biassed apposition to ANY Troy led policy (grrrr!! - waves tattered Red Flag, handed down through several generations)
2- more logically....as with otehr issues, the problem goes far beyond money shuffling. ... What is university For?, how has it changed over the last 25 years?, is it good for the country to have so many graduates? what are these expensive course delivering? are there alternative ways to educate young people? should there be more support for specifically vocational and polytechnic type couyrses (perhapes not degrees)? will students get 'value for money'? how will this be assessed?
3- how do we justify and fund pure research and academia, if tighter scrutiny is put in direct industrial/economic benefits? - where does this leave archaeology (and comparable disciplines)?
Much as i hope this vote will plit the coalition, i strongly suspect that the issue has been revved up as a distraction from other ongoing governmental changes (or lack of).... in particular by forcing the students out on protest early on this issue the effect of more general protest can me softened - particularity as students are an easy demographic to ridicule, and often lack large scale impact/organisation/participation - thus the public becomes bored of protesters, and collective action spread thin.
Take for example the minister (cant remember which one) who specifically stated that he would NOT support ANY proposal offered by protesters - it was his 'duty' to oppose any policy that was not through official routes.
Also the various rhetoric from many politicians about how student protesters should be condemned, and that democratic voting was the only acceptable method.....
Have these people forgotten how it was we came by this so called parliamentary democracy?
"A riot is a bottom the voice of the unheard" - Martin Luther King.