BY KATHERINE BRADSTREET
Earlier this year, the Out of Order student collective carried out an 84-day protest and occupation of the lawns of the Bathurst campus of Charles Sturt University in a successful campaign to save the school of communications. The collective has now deemed the Coalition government, and it's privatisation-based educational policies, out of order.
It has launched a campaign that will seek to involve students from all around the country.
The campaign will begin with a rally at 10am on November 30, under the slogan "Books not Bombs/Education not War" at Victoria Park in Sydney. The protesters will march to Hyde Park to join the Walk Against War. From here, activists in the collective are calling for people to join them as they march to Canberra, where they will establish an "education embassy" on the lawns of Parliament House.
Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly spoke to Toby Finlayson, from Out of Order, about the campaign.
What are the main political objectives of the campaign?
We want to spread awareness about the state of education and what it's going to mean for the future of Australians and the next generation of people's access to higher education. We have focused, in particular, on the Nelson Review [a federal government project headed by education minister Brendan Nelson] because it's looking at the privatisation of higher education, including up-front fees. It's looking at increasing HECS, it's looking at course specialisation which has an effect on universities and communities.
Rural and smaller, newer universities will be affected in particular. The proposed course specialisations will push resources back into the bigger, more wealthy institutions. This will have a disastrous effect on communities that are economically reliant on regional universities and their annual intake, for example in Bathurst something like $30 million a year is brought in through the university.
Why do you think war is such an important issue for education activists?
Education is in a lot of turmoil at the moment. [Around] war and reconciliation and government policies there is a lot of misinformation. The propaganda from the military reflects the fact that there are things that we are not being told and it's through education, and empowering people that things can be achieved. I think that education is an important issue for people concerned about the war.
What are your plans for the education embassy in Canberra?
It will be a place for anybody to come and learn about what's happening with higher education at the moment. It will provide a point of contact for activists involved in the struggle for a better education system, and will also put pressure on the government.
Who is involved in the campaign?
So far we have support from student representative councils from around Australia, also from the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Community and Public Sector Union, and especially from the National Union of Students, which has been intrinsically involved in devising the campaign and its logistics. We've got amazing support coming from all over Australia, it is quite overwhelming and we think it could be really huge.
[For more information email <outoforderstudents@hotmail.com> or phone Toby on 0412 586 808.]<|>
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, November 13, 2002.
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