For Democracy in Further and Higher Education

By Martin Levy.

This article was published as part of the CP's Unity Bulletin at the TUC in September 2013

 

Just a month ago Amazon boss Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post newspaper for $250 million.  Apart from the fact that all that money has come from the superexploitation of Amazon employees, does that matter to us?  It’s what he didn’t buy that is arguably more important.

The Washington Post company is still in existence, although its name will change.  But it has sold its flagship brand because it is making a lot more money from other subsidiaries, and principally from Kaplan Inc, its for-profit education company.  From relative modest origins, Kaplan has grown by aggressive marketing into a transnational corporation principally in higher education, and including some subsidiaries in Britain.  In the USA, it has faced charges of defrauding the government of hundreds of millions of dollars, by paying incentives to recruiters of students, and by lying to achieve accreditation.  Many Kaplan students have been left with no qualifications and with massive tuition fee debts that they will never pay off.

It is this market in further and higher education that the ConDem government in Britain wants to open up.  Already some of the larger FE colleges are becoming corporate groups, taking over smaller colleges and private training organisations – a prelude to full privatisation.  The government has also eased the entry of private, private equity and for-profit companies into higher education.  Just last month, BPP University College of Professional Studies, in London, became the second for-profit institution in Britain to be granted the title of university with degree-awarding powers.

If this sounds a bit analogous to the way that private companies are muscling into academy schools, then it’s not surprising.  The government is intent on privatising the whole public education system.  The process is tantamount to a massive transfer of funds to the private sector, from the public purse and from students in both FE and HE.  These private companies pay their workers less and offer worse terms and conditions than in public sector institutions, which in turn are putting pressure on their own staff as a result of the increased competition.

Education, throughout all sectors, is about the empowerment of individuals.  What is coming, if we don’t act to prevent it, is disempowerment – a narrow vocationalism with the ethos of the market, and with students as consumers who will pay throughout their lives.  We need to resist the changes, but we also need a Charter for Democratic Education, uniting the sectors, and recognising education both as a democratic equal right and as a basis for informed participation in society, as well as providing the skills needed for productive employment.  But it also needs to be democratically run and accountable to its communities, staff, students and the public who fund it.

Such an education system could only be realised within the context of an expanding, productive economy, and one not based on putting private profit first.  It therefore has to be fought for as part of the struggle for an Alternative Economic and Political Strategy (AEPS), something like the People’s Charter for Change.  By defending the current public provision, while projecting the need for a Charter for Democratic Education, we fight for the empowerment of individuals which will help to make the People’s Charter or the AEPS a reality.

Martin Levy teaches at Northumbria University,and is a branch officer and NEC member of UCU, but writes here in his capacity as a member of the Communist Party.  Further details about the proposed Charter for Democratic Education can be found in the Communist Party pamphlet, Education for the People.