UMSU Activist

On Tuesday over 200 people faced down police and made a circuit of our campus before finishing with the occupation of the Arthur Lewis building. The event, organised by the Reclaim the Uni group, was designed to show the University just how we students feel about the direction Manchester is taking. In a University that is fast becoming a business, where students are being downgraded to distant customers and where lecturers are forced to do more and more research for the sake of profit, the demonstration and temporary occupation offered a different vision of education: one where students and lecturers can join together in a democratically controlled, socially useful institution that is open to all – one that benefits the whole of society.

Once inside, a mass meeting of students debated and decided on a set of demands to issue to the University (printed at the end of this report). The demands encompass a wide-range of concerns that students at Manchester have with regards to our University and the direction of education generally. They include demands for more face-to-face teaching and pastoral care, alongside a commitment to divesting from the Arms Trade and for a Free Education.

At the mass meeting, SWSS members and others argued that we should collectively stay in the building until we had a public commitment from the University to meet our demands – with so many students finally taking control of their education and their Uni, we could have acted as a beacon of resistance for the majority of students across the country who share our vision that Another Education Is Possible. An Occupation at Manchester should have been the spark for actions on campuses across the country that could challenge right-wing Vice-Chancellors like Gilbert and build the national movement that we need to force the government to change its education policies. An ongoing Occupation would have undoubtedly allowed many more students to get involved with the action over the following days, it would have made the national press, it could have been the catalyst for a French or Greek style student movement and it would certainly have forced the University to immediately take notice of our demands. Unfortunately, the disempowering and tightly controlled debate meant that many students drifted off home and a real occupation never materialised.

We have, however, put down a marker. On the 15th October we occupied the Martin Harris centre during the University’s Foundation lecture and on the 22nd April we gave Arthur Lewis the same treatment. The movement against the commercialisation of our Universities – demanding an Education for People not Profit – is going from strength to strength in Manchester: this is our chance to drive home our victories here and to build a movement in campuses across the country. Another Education Is Possible!

Andy Cunningham
Manchester SWSS