Students occupy RMIT Chancellory : Melbourne Indymedia

Fellow union members and activists

Many, many students are currently occupying RMIT chancellory, on the 7th Floor of Building 101. They
have taken over the whole floor. The chancellory and staff have been cleared out.

They are protesting at the years of cuts to public funding of education, and at the recent dramatic increases to student fees across Australia. While RMIT has not yet uppped the fees, they have not yet ruled it out, and in fact have just returned from a weekend
retreat where they discussed how they might increase the fees.

In addition, the RMIT chancellory have been responsible for constant
and icious budget cuts in recent years. These attacks have created massive class sizes and staff with nervous breakdowns. RMIT is the right target then for such a protest.

Messages of solidarity to the students can be sent to me in the first instance, or posted on this board.

All activists are called to support the action:
Corner Russell and La Trobe Streets.
Melbourne.

Lisa
NTEU Delegate, IT Services
RMIT

Later you'll know
by Jack Sparrow (no, seriously) Wednesday March 31, 2004 at 07:41 PM

Hi Lisa. Well done.

But this time tomorrow, you will all be gone. The Council will ultimately pass whatever resolutions it regards as financially necessary and life will go on.

When you get a little older and wiser, you'll see that things like higher education fes are a complex issue. That's because we have an aging population and, like all governments around the world, we are operating within an environment of shrinking revenue bases.

No one wants to pay more tax. You don't even want to contribute to contribute to the costs of your education (which are getting more expensive each year). So something's gotta give. That's why this and other governments need to get a balance between public contribution (people like me who pay tax) and you (people who derive the benefit of a higher education).

It's not simple. And I don't expect you to understand it right now. But in time you will.

Good luck with your studies.

Yeah the long term plan of all of this is to eventually have education turned into a comodity market as the 'free market' will increase the quality of education for all. Well the industries that only do well in the 'free market' are usually the ones that have high government subsidies...agricultural/technology sectors
Secondly, if the goal is to expand the economy growth, an advanced technological knowledge based economy, requires that its citizens be highly educated. Education being a comodity would only strength class divisions and ensure that those who can afford more, will get more. This dosen't help the individuals of today or tomorrow, nor does it help Australia's economy (if thats the goal here) expand to the areas that we will need to be in, if we have a relatively low percentage of people in the work force and manufacturing economies of scales not being able to be sustained against China in the future.

um, Jack, I'm a staff member. I pay tonnes of tax thanks very much, mostly because I have such a big HECS debt. After some pay rises I actually take home less.

and my HECS debt is actually tiny in comparison to what the current and future students will be expected to pay.

so thanks for your (condescending) comments - but I still think education is right and should be free!

I think it would be really kewl to post a huge and irrelevant 800x1080 pixel image that will dilute this thread, distract from the topic,
and make it difficult to read for people using smaller/lower resolution screens.