A very tough day in the UK today, with the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition passing(just) its proposal to triple university tuition fees and cut allowances for some students. There is a huge wave of protest in the UK that has got pretty ugly, with Prince Charles car attacked, the NUS condemning the violence and stories flying about police tactics.
Leaving aside the substance of the issue, which represents fees of up to 9,000 pounds, for many casual observers in New Zealand it might be hard to understand why this debate and vote is so significant in the UK, and why the focus is so much on the Liberal Democrats. Martin Kettle in the Guardian has a good description of this, and believes that this is the beginning of the end for the coalition.
From a Liberal Democrat perspective many backbenchers voted against their leadership today because it was clear party policy not to raise fees, but also because many, including their leader Nick Clegg signed pledges not to raise fees. Those Lib Dem MPs in electorates with large university populations are worried.
Signing a pledge such as this is not new. There are many of us here who remember Lockwood Smith’s 1990 promise not to raise fees. To remind, here is the evidence. (h/t Moana Mackey)
It would be fair to say that when the current Speaker was the Minister of Education in the 1990s, we had a somewhat fractous relationship. He refused to come to Dunedin where at the time I was the Student Association President. So we drove to Christchurch to find him. This carried on for a year or so, and culminated with Lockwood climbing out a window at Canterbury University. Ah, those were the days.
But through it all, one thing I could say for Lockwood was that he took seriously his commitment to ‘life-long learning’. I disagreed with many of the policy ideas, but the concept that we should never stop learning, up-skilling, training and developing is one where I was in total agreement. It is only with this kind of view of education that society will continue to develop and productivity improve.
Sadly, the recent actions of the National Government, and Minister Tolley make it clear that there is very little commitment to the concept of lifelong learning at the moment. The roll call is sad:
a lack of real initatives on training as part of the Jobs Summit or the nine day fortnight;
no plan to implement the Skills Strategy;
cutting back the Training Incentive Allowance;
cuts to Adult and Community Education in schools that puts at risk the further education of thousands of people;
and now today we see Anne Tolley is reviewing the ability of seniors to access student loans.
This is short-sighted nonsense from National. Lockwood Smith understood that lifelong learning was part of a cohesive, productive society. Just like not properly funding super, we might not see all the effects of this immediately, but over time we will all pay for not making these investments.
