By Sarah Peart
MELBOURNE — The national education committee of the National Union of Students, meeting on February 3, decided to call a national day of action on April 5 on the theme "Public education, not privatisation!".
Reaching that decision was not without its difficulties. At a caucus meeting of the National Broad Left (NBL) on February 1, Resistance argued that the group should support a national day of action with the main demand of "Reverse education funding cuts!". Resistance supported the general slogan "Free education, not privatisation!", but argued that students needed to demand that the federal government take the first step back towards free education by reversing the funding cuts made in 1996.
The NBL meeting agreed to argue at the committee meeting for the slogan "Free public education, not privatisation!", but decided not to support the demand proposed by Resistance.
At the committee meeting, members of the National Organisation of Labor Students (Labor left) and Unity (Labor right) disagreed with using the word "free" in the slogan. They argued that it would discourage those who don't support free education from attending the national day of action.
NBL members argued that refusing to use the word "free" implies some support for a "user-pays" system. NUS has a policy of support for free education.
Eventually, the committee decided that the April 5 action should have the slogan "Public education, not privatisation!". The action will also demand: a liveable student allowance; no attacks on university staff; full public funding of education; restore and increase Abstudy; no GST; no student fees; and no "voucher" system for post-graduate students.
The NUS national executive will meet on February 5-6 to discuss other campaign priorities and to ratify the decisions made by the education committee. Education activists in each state have already begun to discuss how to carry out the campaign on both campus and state levels.
The NBL will also argue for NUS to support a May 13 national day of action initiated by Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor with the theme "Justice for the East Timorese! Justice for all refugees!".