Demonstration Frustration

“Classic YUSU: can’t get enough buses to Hes East, but can get enough buses to London for a lefty protest about value for money…”

That status was right at the top of my news feed when I logged into Facebook last weekend, and I couldn’t help but chuckle. It certainly seems odd that YUSU are attempting to coax students down to the capital, with the ultimate ‘Demo Survival & Revival Pack’ on offer. For £5; transport to and from the demonstration, a pack explaining rights and reasons for marching (evidently, then, it doesn’t matter whether students care about, or even know, why they are protesting), free entry to Tokyo the following night and a wristband. All that heavily subsidised by YUSU at a time when the money could perhaps be funding ongoings in York. Their total annual funding to the Liberal Demorats Society, for example, is thought to be 100 times lower than their cash splash on this demo.

And surely I can’t be the only one wondering what protesters realistically aim to achieve with the tuition fees policy now sorted until at least the next government?

Thousands of students from right across the UK are expected to march through central London to demonstrate against the Government’s programme on students and education, and it is the first national protest the NUS has called since the tuition fees protest in November 2010, which descended into groups violently smashing windows, throwing missiles and lighting fires. It led to more than 60 arrests, with dozens of people injured and taken to hospital.

Tomorrow, London is braced to host another – and hopefully rather less violent – protest. But marching under the banner ‘Educate, Employ, Empower’ will most definitely be a passionate and intense occasion. Around 600 students’ unions are in membership, accounting for more than 95 per cent of all higher and further education unions in the UK.

An education system in which the current barriers between Further Education and Higher Education don’t exist, a system that properly supports students in financial need and a system that disempowers snobbery is one I’m sure we would all like to see. We need fair work and fair pay, and sustainable jobs are a necessary building block for a sustainable future and a just society. But if it is to be effective, this protest simply cannot start and end tomorrow: it has to be part of a longer-term vision, and to secure progression we all must unite in more than just a march.

The damaging effects of recent changes to education have, it is widely considered, left it pretty inaccessible for future students but not unmanageable for those currently studying, so the protest must be all about giving future generations the best opportunities, rather than about changing the present system. “Youth unemployment is at an all-time high, getting on the property ladder is next to impossible and we don’t even have the safety net of pensions” said Liam Burns, the NUS president. He went on to encourage students to join the protest in London.

The demo comes just weeks after the Cleggpology, a truly needless apology from the Liberal Democrat leader regretting the decision to increase tuition fees. But of course, he cannot be held responsible at all in that, after ensuring a stable coalition Government for the country by jumping into bed with the Tories…  had the Lib Dems secured a majority in the 2010 general election, we can only assume they would then have kept to their promise and abolished student fees.

So for tomorrow’s protest to avoid being rendered completely meaningless and redundant, we as students must continue to sign petitions, lobby officials and develop an ongoing campaign that will force the Government to take action. If not for our generation, then for future leaders of this broken country.