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﻿<title﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, Needed: A Student Movement - Article﻿</title>﻿

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﻿<b﻿>﻿Needed: A Student Movement

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by David Camfield﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿<i﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, December 1997 - January 1998﻿</i>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

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The Canadian Federation of Students' (CFS) call for a cross-country day of action on January 28,1998 offers an important opportunity to take a step towards a real student movement.

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The federal government continues to make big cuts to the of education, health care and welfare through Canada Health and Social Transfer payments to the provinces. Provincial governments decide how to make the cuts to the services they provide. This clever tactic has given both levels of government an alibi for what is happening to post-secondary education: higher tuition, growing student debt, larger classes and attacks on the working conditions and pay of campus workers. At the same time, the direct involvement and influence of corporations in education is growing.

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

As post-secondary education becomes more inaccessible, poorer quality and further geared to training students in what corporations believe is important, activists who want to halt and reverse this direction face a major challenge. How can we get what we want? 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Lobbying governments is the favorite approach of student politicians. It is a waste of time. Liberal, Tory, PQ and NDP governments are implementing similar measures, and not because they are taking policy advice from the wrong people. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

What is happening to education is part of a broader strategy of the dominant class in society - corporate executives, bankers, top state bureaucrats and the like - to reorganize the services delivered by governments. Just as employers are reengineering workplaces so they can get more effort and output from their workers in order to compete for profits in the global economy, public services are being redesigned in the interests of capital.

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Costs for universities and colleges are being shifted onto the backs of students through higher user fees (tuition). Students are to be increasingly trained in sciences, computers and business. Arts and social sciences programmes should emphasize what corporate and government power finds useful - more courses about the status quo and how it can be improved, fewer that encourage students to ask radical questions about society. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The plaintive voices of students lobbying for priorities other than those of the ruling class will be ignored. We cannot make change by reasoning with administrators and politicians to steer another course. Students need to organize a movement to force them to grant our demands. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Quebec students have shown how this can be done. In the fall of 1996, the Quebec government implemented a tuition freeze (covering all students except those who come to study from outside Quebec) after a student strike swept the CEGEPs (junior colleges) and universities.

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The strike was initiated by the Mouvement pour le Droit a l'Education (MDE) (Movement for the Right to Education). The MDE mobilized students with its demands for free, fully government-funded education, grants rather than loans for students and the democratization of the education system. Instead of asking students to march and chant for a day and then sending them home, the MDE tries to politicize and organize students to continue the fight. At a time when social movements from below in the Canadian state are weak and there are few victories to inspire us to keep up the struggle, the MDE is an important example to learn from.

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Some in CFS see January 28 as a day of protest to support their lobbying efforts. Although this is better than what right-wing federations like CASA and OUSA offer, it is not a winning strategy. For student activists in English Canada with a different perspective, January 28 is an opportunity to take a step towards a movement with a strategy similar to the MDE's. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

As a federation of student government representatives, not an open organization of students, the structure of CFS prevents it from being the basis of a mass movement.. Such a movement could be built by uniting students from campus left groups with many more students in broad activist organizations, and linking these groups together. It would remain independent of the CFS and student governments but work with them when they support mobilization. STORM at the U. of Alberta and the newly-formed Uproot at the U. of Guelph are organizations with this kind of approach. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

This means that holding the largest possible actions on January 28 is not enough. Instead of committees that fold after big events, we need organizations (open to individuals, not just representatives) of students and campus workers that commit themselves to trying to get more people involved in an ongoing movement through the preparations for January 28. Regional conferences in February would be useful in bringing students together for education and planning for the battles that lie ahead. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


﻿<font﻿ ﻿size="1"﻿>﻿To get involved in efforts to build a real student movement in Ontario, call Uproot at 519-766-9018..If you are interested in an initiative to launch a radical newspaper that would help build such a movement, please call 519-763-7898. In Alberta,STORM can be reached at 403-428-6266. To contact the MDE in Quebec, call 514-276-0827.﻿</font>﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


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