By Kylie Moon
MELBOURNE — Plans are under way for a Victoria-wide day of action by university, TAFE and high school students on August 18, to coincide with the Australian Education Union's industrial action.
The day of action is part of an ongoing campaign against up-front fees and course cutbacks, and to demand the restoration of secondary and tertiary education funding. It will aim to unite the many campaigns that are emerging throughout Victoria as the cuts to state and federal education budgets are implemented.
High school students will be protesting against the increasingly unmaintained and under-funded condition of public schools. On June 3, 50 students from Sale College staged a strike against the run-down condition of the school's heating system, toilets, classrooms and other facilities. The protest was organised by year nine students following a meeting of 100 students.
The day of action will also focus on "course rationalisation", now a major way of implementing the budget cuts at universities. It means staff cuts, course closures and reduced learning hours.
Latrobe University has been particularly hard hit, losing its agricultural science and music departments, and chemistry and Hindi courses. Also, two weeks before exams, students were informed that they had lost three days of their exam study break; previously a week was allocated.
Melbourne University has plans to "rationalise" 190 subjects in the arts faculty. This will cause 27 history subjects, 20 English subjects and an undetermined number of women's studies subjects to be scrapped as the university places less priority on humanities and more on vocationally oriented subjects.
On June 4, more than 150 students and staff held a general meeting against this rationalisation. An Aboriginal studies lecturer spoke out against the basis on which subject cuts are decided, which causes unhealthy competition for enrolments amongst lecturers.
The meeting also discussed the university's plans to reduce weekly tutorials to fortnightly in the arts faculty.
Ray Fulcher, Melbourne University Student Union education co-officer, commented, "Clearly this is another cost-cutting measure to decrease teaching hours. It completely contradicts the university's policy to uphold quality education. Small group teaching is an essential component of the arts degree, because it gives students the opportunity to debate, discuss and absorb different ideas."
The meeting passed motions demanding that weekly small group discussions be upheld in the arts faculty. Another meeting will be held on July 20.
Victorian College of the Arts students are continuing their campaign against the college's proposal to introduce up-front fees for undergraduates at the VCA Sixth School.
On June 10, VCA students held a Fight for Education Day, which included a rally, speakers, barbecue and march to the National Gallery. There students, dressed in suits, condemned the corporatisation of arts education. Red dye was put in the water at the gallery entrance to symbolise the sacrificing of arts education.
At the rally, a motion was passed instructing the two student representatives on the Review Consultancy Team to withdraw in the event that any motion recommending the introduction of up-front fees for undergraduates was passed. The final decision on up-front fees is due to be made on July 14, the first week after semester break.