Greens lead Norwich stand against higher education privatisation
10 June 2008
Green Party councillor and UEA lecturer Dr. Rupert Read today had a motion overwhelmingly supported and adopted by the best ever attended annual University of East Anglia (UEA) staff assembly, expressing powerful opposition to the new Labour Government's agenda of privatising higher education, with Dr. Read accusing the Government of turning universities into "bastions of privilege for the rich".
Cllr Read, lecturer at UEA and lead candidate for the Green Party for the 2009 European elections in Eastern Region, said
"Labour is planning to allow different universities to charge different fees to their students, which will price all but the rich out of Britain's best universities.
"Charles Clarke, the embattled MP for Norwich South and former Education Secretary, originally introduced tuition fees and with that began the process of higher education privatisation that will further polarise Britain into the haves and have nots.
"The passage of my motion this afternoon, by an overwhelming majority, sends out a strong signal of UEA staff's outright rejection of these plans and their consequences.
"We do not want to end up in a situation like that in America, where top universities are, in effect, closed to virtually all students from non-rich families. Higher education should remain a proper public service, accessible on the basis of merit and ability - and not on the basis of ability to pay.
"The Green Party is the only Party committed to providing university education free at the point of delivery. We stand full-square behind the strong campaign of students and lecturers at UEA and across the country, and only a vote for the Green Party can stop the 'Labour' government from turning universities into bastions of privilege for the rich, rather than what they should be: open centres of learning."
