Walkout: Students encouraged to protest against rising tuition fees (Matt_Baldry:flickr)
The National Union of Students (NUS) is planning a mass walkout to campaign against the new government changes to student fees.
The NUS president has described the reform as a “con” and that the NUS will be encouraging as many students as possible to boycott lectures on 14 March.
The nationwide walkout is in protest against the rise in tuition fees and the ‘privatisation of higher education’.
It is expected to be one of the most significant of student campaigns, following the national student demo which saw thousands of students stand against the tuition fee increase.
The National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) is also planning a march in a bid to gain government attention over the change to education policy that will affect students across the UK.
Liam Burns, NUS president, said: “Although the government formally lowered its higher education bill last month, the union wanted to go ahead with the boycott, as it feared there would be back-door privatisation.”
“The debate around the reforms that David Willetts wants to put in place are so opaque and so technocratic to the general public that no one is questioning them,” said Burns.
The NUS president has also voiced concerns over the ‘hidden course fees’, where students have had to pay extra for printing, lab coats, textiles and field trips. He claims that the rise in tuition fees should include the additional costs of education that students often do not account for.
The costs are “certainly not transparent, and it is becoming very hard to justify why students are having to bear that cost … when fees are £9,000″, he added.
NCAFC has said that actions for the protest will include campus and town centre demonstrations.
“We’re talking about big occupations taking place and big demos taking place,” the organisation claimed.
“If NUS really pushes students’ unions to do it and we’ll be pushing activists and unions to do it, we could have massive turn-outs,” they added.
