Socialist Alliance member and TAFE student Sarah Hathway spoke at a rally at Geelong TAFE on April 16. Her speech is abridged below.
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I’m currently studying a Diploma of Community Services at the Gordon [TAFE]. Like many of us here, I also studied at the Gordon before these insidious TAFE cuts took effect, so I’ve seen the devastating impact the cuts have had on services that used to be provided on campus.
The student amenities fee we paid at the start of the year, which was $125 for many of us, is supposedly meant to provide activities (gone), diaries (gone) and services on campus.
We’ve been lucky enough to keep our library, unlike [students of] Ballarat TAFE who have lost theirs.
However, the Gordon library has had its hours severely reduced. At the beginning of term one, the library was shut all day Tuesdays, one of the busiest days of the week at city campus.
Due to student and teacher outrage, and many angry emails, the library is now open Tuesdays. This is proof that direct action works. However, it would be remiss of me if I did not point out that many of us are still struggling to access the library due to the reduced hours.
Many of us are not just students. We’re employees, we’re parents, and some of us aren’t as physically able as others. The library being open for seven hours Monday to Thursday, and only four hours on Fridays is not good enough.
Neither is the advice from Gordon management that if we’re struggling, we should use the public library across the road. Well sorry, but who are we paying our fees to?
I didn’t pay my $125 student amenities fee for services I can’t access, only to be told “we’ll take your money, we won’t give you the services, and we’ll give you stupid advice like ‘go and use the public library’,” which doesn’t have the required texts anyway. If that’s the case, I’ll have my $125 back.
I’m a student who is lucky if I get six hours paid work a week. I can’t afford to chuck $125 away on services that are not being provided. Some of us don’t get any paid work at all.
Lastly, and possibly most reprehensible, is the loss of student representative committees. This is a deliberate silencing of the student voice and an attempt to end student representation on campus. This is a move to disengage students from the happenings on their campus. Well, we’ve already [fought this] by demanding the library be opened on Tuesdays and again by showing up to the rally today.
To assess the situation let’s look at what has changed since last year when this campaign had some momentum.
Good old “one term Ted [Baillieu]” will forever be known as “half term Ted”. However, Baillieu’s replacement, Denis Napthine, has done nothing to restore TAFE funding. Instead, he’s promised $200 million across all TAFEs, essentially to assist in the privatisation process, a move that has been denounced by the Australian Education Union and the National Tertiary Education Union.
Labor state opposition leader Daniel Andrews has made some vague statements about restoring funding in 2015 based on student numbers.
Clearly, the Australian Labor Party has shown it’s dedication to public sector education. The Brumby Labor state government started these attacks on TAFE before the Liberals took over.
Now, the federal Labor government has cut $2.3 billion from university funding [to fund public schools as recommended by the Gonski report].
What kind of backward logic makes it OK to cut tertiary education to fund primary and secondary education? It’s like taking from Peter to pay Paul.
These latest cuts to universities mean they will have to cut services, raise class sizes and lay off staff. This tune sounds familiar doesn’t it? Under the proposed Gonski reforms, Catholic schools will receive an extra $1.5 billion and private schools an extra $1 billion. There’s one private school in Geelong that has a newly built indoor equestrian centre, and students [at Gordon TAFE] can’t even get student diaries. How is that fair?
Every time the government needs money, it uses the public sector as a grab bag. “Single parents don’t need welfare — they can get a job.” Cut funding.
“The working class doesn’t need higher education.” Goodbye TAFE.
“We certainly don’t want them mingling with rich kids at university.” Cut funding.
Please support any and all industrial action taken by your teaching staff. These teachers standing among you have been fighting this battle for some time now. We, the students, need to get active.
It’s our education, and our futures. If we don’t fight back we will soon have nothing left. There will be no TAFE for future generations, no universities unless you can afford it. Please take a stand for yourselves, for your future and