Intimidation has no place in a seat of learning | @guardianletters

Cops Off Campus protest at the University of London, six December 2013. Photograph: Paul Davey/Corbis

The repression against pupil protesters covered in the Guardian last week (Police accused of extreme force at protests on campus, six December) is not restricted to London. In the exact same week as the clashes with police at University of London, 5 college students at Sussex University were suspended for their position in a peaceful occupation, and Sheffield and Birmingham university managements went to court to avert protests on their campuses.

Activist groups across the nation have called a nationwide day of action for the appropriate to organise and protest, and for “Cops off campus” on Wednesday eleven December.

University of London management is dealing with protests simply because of its program to shut down the student union, University of London Union its refusal to recognise the trade union, IWGB, that represents the vast majority of its outsourced ancillary staff and its failure to give these employees with simple rights this kind of as pensions. Solidarity with campus staff has been a central theme of recent pupil protests.

These protests have also raised wider questions about the marketisation of our training program, from improved costs and soaring pupil debt to the privatisation of student loans to the working of universities as companies.

Staff and students are opposing not just the police but the university bosses, personal contractors and government the police protect.
Daniel Cooper University of London Union vice-president and 104 student representatives from about the Uk
Complete checklist to be published on www.ulu.co.uk on Tuesday morning

• We unreservedly condemn the escalating use of police towards peaceful protests at the University of London. It looks clear that the university management is not negotiating with college students and staff who protest – like occupying college students – but is just attempting to suppress dissent. We condemn the blanket injunction that prohibits occupations in Bloomsbury campuses right up until June 2014.

We get in touch with on all who care about the potential of our universities to object to this invited invasion of the police onto campuses. Police intimidation has no spot in a seat of finding out. Several workers and students have fled repressive regimes. We are horrified at supposedly “liberal” university managements adopting these tactics.

We demand an fast repudiation of the injunction by the university management, no more police on campus, and for management to engage with college students and personnel about the issues that led to the protests in the first place.
Molly Cooper Unison service group executive, Sean Wallis UCU NEC &amp University College UCU president, Simon Deville Birkbeck Unison branch secretary, Elizabeth Lawrence UCL UCU President and a hundred academics and members of greater schooling trade unions close to the United kingdom Total record to be published on www.ulu.co.uk on Tuesday morning

• Rather than responding to a set of eminently realistic and practicable demands to try to defend the appropriate to schooling and just operating circumstances in our university, senior management at the University of London have decided that, when faced with the choice amongst dialogue and repression, they will to turn to the latter.

Describing the student occupation as “a disgraceful and aggressive act, which positioned the security of our personnel at threat”, Chris Cobb, chief operating officer and university secretary, declared: “The university will always help peaceful and reputable protest.” The mendacity of this statement is breathtaking. “Disgraceful and aggressive” describes really properly the behaviour of management ready to ban all protest in Senate Property, regardless of how peaceful, collude in the arrest of students, and get in touch with police and safety guards to evict protesters just before getting into into any severe dialogue whatsoever.

College students and workers are becoming bombarded with advertising and marketing talk about “the student knowledge”, but as soon as they act as anything at all other than compliant consumers, their spaces are taken away and their appropriate to political expression and assembly quashed.

It would seem that people who run our universities will move heaven and earth to boost fulfillment statistics for the National Pupil Survey, but are perfectly at ease with police punching their students in the face. This is intolerable. We demand that the university’s vice-chancellor and its collegiate council act quickly to rescind the closure of the University of London Union and the prohibition of protest at Senate Property, and stop calling police on to our campuses at the least indicator of significant dissent. Universities must be run for students and employees, not towards them. If senior management refuses to comprehend this, individuals who perform and understand in our universities will have to draw the consequences and act to show that we have no confidence in those who run our institutions.
Alberto Toscano Reader in vital theory, Goldsmiths, Bill Bowring Professor of law, Birkbeck,Lynn Welchman Professor of law, Soas and 197 academics and personnel at University of London colleges
Full listing of signatories at bit.ly/1cwphbI

• John Harris’s piece (University of strife, 7 December) illustrates the failure of what passes for present day management. Much less than a generation ago universities have been communities presided above by a vice-chancellor whose stipend was that of a effectively-paid professor, no greater than ten instances the average of all staff. Academics, college students, administrators, technicians, secretarial employees and cleaners could all truly feel they have been producing a contribution that additional up to a greater whole.

Following the mantra “We must pay the going fee for a CEO”, we are landed with a bloated administration that drains funds from the institution at the expense of the two the academics and the minimal-paid. There is now a little, very properly-paid elite pursuing ephemera of branding, competition and worldwide development, underpinned by a well-remunerated cohort of box-ticking managers. Contracting out security, cleaning and catering saves a pittance at the cost of the minimal-paid.

What puzzles me is where lies the managerial magic that makes it possible for Balfour Beatty to make a profit and the university a saving, which is not inside the competence of the university itself. In all probability the same university gives programs it claims to be at the cutting-edge of management. To their credit, the college students seem to be to be looking for a solution to this conundrum.
JR O’Callaghan, Emeritus professor
Gidea Park, Essex

Intimidation has no place in a seat of learning | @guardianletters

Universities should be the last place to ban free speech | Nick Cohen

The London School of Economics: difficulty has brewed over censorship during freshers’ week. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

On the morning of three October, Chris Moos and Abhishek Phadnis put on joke T-shirts, of the type students put on the world over, and went to man the Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society stall at the London School of Economics freshers’ honest. The bullying the university authorities visited on them for the next 36 hrs need to provoke the most critical free of charge speech court situation to hit British universities in years. It surely deserves to.

Mention free of charge speech and academia, and Pavlovian reactions kick in. The proper complains, with justice, about politically proper restrictions on the capacity to argue, often imposed by the rape apologists of the Socialist Employees get together, who not only conceal crimes against ladies, but scream down the holders of contrary opinions. Yet again with justice, the left complains about the authoritarianism of university administrators and the police threatening rights to protest.

Earlier this month, the Guardian ran footage of a detective supplying cash to a student if he would spy on extremist groups such as the English Defence League and Unite Against Fascism (a front organisation for the SWP) and anti-fracking campaigners, Uk Uncut and any individual involved in Cambridge student politics as well.

The Moos and Phadnis situation cuts via the hubbub of charge and counter-charge. It shows that authoritarians of all stripes share the very same vices, and not just because you know without needing to wait for their careers to “progress” that today’s repressive pupil union politicians will be tomorrow’s repressive human sources managers and Labour house secretaries.

The students wore Jesus and Mo T-shirts with designs by a wonderfully acid British cartoonist, who wisely never discloses his actual name. Jesus and Mo are holding a banner that says: “Stop drawing holy prophets in a disrespectful manner NOW!” Mo also has a placard that reads: “Religion is NOT humorous” and is saying: “If this doesn’t work, I say we start BURNING things.”

Are you offended? Actually? Oh dear that’s a pity, because if you can’t consider a satirical reference to true religious censorship, your fragile sensibilities need to be your dilemma and no one particular else’s. Public authority ought to limit free of charge speech only when it incites violence or unequivocally provokes direct and harmful discrimination against a vulnerable minority. The cartoon was doing neither.

The political hacks of LSE’s student union, who are learning at a university that Sidney and Beatrice Webb founded in 1894 to promote “modern” schooling on “socialist lines,” knew absolutely nothing of standard concepts. They made the decision that the modern day and socialist factor to do was silence freethinkers.

Student union officials told them to “drop the T-shirts” and pulled atheist literature from the stall. When the younger atheists asked why they must submit to this impertinent demand, the hacks replied that the T-shirts had been “of course, offensive”. They did not say why. The LSE’s safety guards arrived and threatened to expel the atheists. Sporting the T-shirts was an act of “harassment” that could “offend others”, they said. Surrounded by five of the university’s goons, Chris Moos agreed to place a jacket over the offending T-shirt. This was not good adequate for the LSE’s head of safety, since “prophet” was nevertheless noticeable over the jacket’s neckline. That one particular word – “prophet” – was a horrendous insult to all right-thinking folks, the LSE ruled. Chris zipped up his jacket all the way, but that still was not sufficient for the head of security.

“He told us he was going to leave two guards to monitor our behaviour,” the atheists say in the formal complaint to the LSE’s director. “These guards continued to adhere to us closely as we went in and out of the space during the remainder of the occasion. They intentionally intimidated and humiliated us in front of others.”

The atheists are complaining about the behaviour of the university as nicely as the censorship of the student politicians, since – as you will have gathered – the supposedly leftwing pupil union and the establishment it is meant to battle are not enemies but partners in repression, as the behaviour of the university’s personal police force displays.

If it have been just the LSE, the affair would matter much less. No a single expects honourable conduct from an immoral institution, whose lecturers simpered like besotted lovers at Muammar Muhammad Gaddafi, although their masters pocketed Libyan funds. The university both does not know about or wilfully ignores the need to condemn religious prejudice, which kills and blights the lives of millions, while usually permitting uninhibited criticism of religious leaders and dogmas, in whose name millions a lot more are killed or have their lives blighted.

The Nationwide Secular Society has taken counsel’s viewpoint and is appealing for funds to launch a check case towards the LSE due to the fact censorship is so typical. The National Union of Students, for instance, banned the feminist campaigner Julie Bindel from speaking at British universities simply because she had written a trite and unpleasant report about transsexuals in 2004, for which she apologised. That Bindel aided rapists’ victims rather than covered up their crimes did her result in no great. When student politicians at final allowed her to speak to the audiences they corral, Bindel had to pull out of addressing a meeting at Manchester University after acquiring death and rape threats. Naturally, university administrators have taken benefit of the oppressive climate. Leftwing activists have learned that oppression cuts each techniques. Universities contact in police-puppy handlers to round up college students protesting towards the privatisation of campus services or program closures.

On the “occupy” left and establishment proper, hardly any individual thinks that the best university schooling must be offensive that the youthful ought to have their beliefs challenged in the most robust manner imaginable. If their beliefs stand up to the challenge, they will be strengthened. If not, they ought to change them. If college students cannot get the smallest of problems with out running to authority with scorching tears rolling down their cheeks, they shouldn’t be at university in the initial spot.

Instead of generating assured students who can handle any argument you throw at them, universities are a production line for cowed conformists. As an alternative of getting cost-free spaces exactly where tips can be debated without restraint, universities have become like the personal and public bureaucracies the youthful will go on to join: communicate out of flip, or even dress in the incorrect T-shirt, and the bosses will make you endure.

• Remarks will be turned on at 9am

Universities should be the last place to ban free speech | Nick Cohen

Average cost of a nursery place has risen 30% under coalition

Miliband is expected to say: ‘Millions of mother and father are dealing with a childcare crunch. The price of a nursery spot is now the highest in background.’ Photograph: Murdo Macleod

The average expense of a nursery spot has risen 30% underneath the coalition overnment – almost 5 instances quicker than common wages, Labour leader Ed Miliband is anticipated to say on Monday.

Miliband will draw interest to the “childcare crunch” in a speech on Monday by pointing out that the common value of a weekly nursery spot for a child aged two or over for 25 hrs a week has gone up to £107 in 2013, from £82 in 2010.

In the course of the very same time time period typical weekly earnings have only risen six% from £449 to £477, which means mother and father functioning part-time on average wages would now have to function four days a week to spend for complete-time weekly childcare, in accordance to Labour.

Miliband will claim that the coalition government have completed “absolutely nothing to support” families and have extra stress and strain to loved ones lifestyle.

He will point out that there are 35,000 fewer childcare areas and 576 fewer Sure Start centres given that the last basic election as he sets out his party’s strategies to “stand up for families” and to support mothers and fathers tackle the “price of residing crisis”.

The opposition leader launched Labour’s childcare policies at September’s get together conference, including an extension of cost-free childcare for three- and 4-12 months-olds to 25 hrs a week for functioning mothers and fathers, paid for by a levy on banking institutions.

Labour would also supply a a legal promise of entry to wraparound care from 8am to 6pm at primary schools.

On a pay a visit to to a nursery on Monday, Miliband is expected to say: “Hundreds of thousands of dad and mom are facing a childcare crunch. The price of a nursery area is now the highest in historical past, at much more than £100 a week to cover element-time hours.

“And regular expenses for a complete-time spot are now rising up to £200 or even much more. That signifies a normal mother or father performing a component-time occupation would have to function from Monday until finally Thursday just to cover these charges of childcare.

“Growing charges have been matched only by falling numbers of locations. David Cameron denounced Labour just before the final election for warning that the Tories may well place Sure Commence at chance.

“But an regular of 3 Positive Begin centres are getting misplaced each and every single week, contributing to a total of 35,000 fewer childcare places underneath David Cameron. And all at a time when the number of young children under four in England has risen by 125,000.

“This childcare crunch is affecting families with children at school also. Dad and mom are facing a day-to-day obstacle program as they seek out to balance operate and household daily life.

“Beneath the last government 99% of schools provided access to breakfast clubs and following-school clubs. But much more than a third of regional authorities have reported this has been scaled back in their area under David Cameron.

“That’s what you get from this government – tax cuts for millionaires, cuts in childcare areas for hundreds of thousands of families. The Tories say they care about families but they have carried out practically nothing to aid for 3 many years while all the time incorporating to the anxiety and strain of family members daily life.

“If it is undesirable for households, it truly is negative for Britain as well. Mother and father who want to work ought to be capable to do so. We want to use the talents of absolutely everyone if we are to succeed as an economic system and keep social protection bills down. Seven out of 10 remain-at-house-mums tell surveys that the value of childcare has deterred them from hunting for a occupation.

“One particular Nation Labour would stand up for households and make work pay. We would extend free nursery places for 3- and four-12 months-olds from 15 to 25 hrs a week for mother and father at perform. And we would provide a legal ensure to dad and mom with youngsters at principal college that they can accessibility breakfast clubs or homework clubs, making it possible for mums and dads to do a total days’ work knowing their kids are safe and cared for.”

Average cost of a nursery place has risen 30% under coalition

The Learning Network Blog: What Would You Invent to Make the World a Better Place?

Questions about concerns in the information for college students 13 and older.

An automobile mechanic invented a tool to make births safer. He dreamed it up following watching a YouTube video about how to extract a misplaced cork from a wine bottle. If all goes nicely, doctors hope the inexpensive gadget may save lives — possibly hundreds of thousands of them.

If you could invent something to make the globe a much better area, what would you invent?

In “Car Mechanic Dreams Up a Tool to Ease Births,” Donald G. McNeil Jr. writes about Jorge Odón’s invention.

The notion came to Jorge Odón as he slept. By some means, he stated, his unconscious made the leap from a YouTube video he had just seen on extracting a lost cork from a wine bottle to the realization that the exact same parlor trick could conserve a child caught in the birth canal.

Mr. Odón, 59, an Argentine automobile mechanic, constructed his initial prototype in his kitchen, employing a glass jar for a womb, his daughter’s doll for the trapped little one, and a material bag and sleeve sewn by his wife as his lifesaving device.

Unlikely as it seems, the concept that took form on his counter has won the enthusiastic endorsement of the World Health Organization and main donors, and an American health care technology firm has just licensed it for manufacturing.

With the Odón Gadget, an attendant slips a plastic bag within a lubricated plastic sleeve about the head, inflates it to grip the head and pulls the bag till the child emerges.

Physicians say it has massive prospective to save babies in poor countries, and possibly to minimize cesarean segment births in rich ones.

Students: Study the whole characteristic, then tell us …

• What problem would you try out to address, either in your community or about the globe?


• If you could invent or develop some thing to deal with that problem, what would it be?


• Mr. Odón only managed to get his invention this far due to the fact his cousin knew an essential medical doctor in Buenos Aires, who had a good friend at the Globe Health Organization, who knew Dr. Merialdi, the W.H.O.’s chief coordinator for bettering maternal and perinatal well being. Who could you inquire to support you make your invention a good results?

Note: Last year we asked this same query, inspired by an indestructible soccer ball.

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College students 13 and older are invited to comment under. Please use only your very first name. For privacy policy factors, we will not publish pupil comments

The Learning Network Blog: What Would You Invent to Make the World a Better Place?