Firstly, major apologies for the lack of blogging activity. Nearly a month since my last blog ffs! I can only put this down to my own laziness to research issues when I finally get a break from my dull law degree.
Anyway, mentioning uni, there's some absolutely insane protest going on against the wholly necessary cuts which we have to make. Of course at the sign of anyone's job getting "slashed" it seems inevitable that the stereotypically student-left jump on the bandwagon. How a campaign can claim to have legitimacy when it has fewer supporters than jobs actually being axed is beyond me but that obviously doesn't concern them.
The reason I've decided to blog on this petty attempt at student activism is because now events have gone a step too far. On the 1st March the protesters stormed the board of governors meeting and have since been in occupation of the vice-chancellors office. Resorting to violence and causing fear and panic across the rest of the university is not something that should be tolerated and it is of little surprise that the campaign has recently added to its demands that "no student or member of staff involved in actions against job cuts faces any repercussions or reprisals"; me thinks our rebels are feeling post-revolution guilt.
The accusation thrown against the university is that the governors are trying to make it run more like a business; well heaven forbid! The campus is based at the top of Regent Street, one of the foremost business areas in London and the world. They continue that because of this and the ensuing cuts that education will suffer. I doubt this somehow. Clearly if there is some sort of thinning down in areas it will be done in an appropriate way so as to not lose business. If the governors were to go too far then no one would go to the university at all and there would be no 'business' left to run. The governors are the best people to know the best ways to save money and indeed the university has in the past had financial trouble and needs to cut back.
Furthermore the government has in the past year or so shown more reluctance towards funding universities across England and with tuition fees set to rise surely the best way to prevent this is to cut back in non-essential areas. Personally I hope that more universities take note of the good work done by the governors and deal with any wannabe revolutions appropriately.
Picture courtesy of Sky Yarlett
www.flickr.com/worldofsky
www.worldofsky.wordpress.com
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