EST. 1936
Redbrick Friday 16th March 2012 | Volume 76 | Issue 1411 | redbrickpaper.co.uk
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'R.I.P Higher Education' VPE and VPE-elect ejected from the Bullring by security BCU and UoB align on higher education issues
Security staff eject Bauer... Freddie Herzog Online News Editor
Simon Furse, Vice President (Education) elect, and Edd Bauer, current VPE, were ejected from the Bullring after briefly occupying the Vodafone store on Wednesday. A National Union of Students (NUS) organised 'walkout' took place led by a small group of protesters who met in Victoria Square in Birmingham city centre. The protesters were quickly removed from the Bullring by security guards and despite trying to get back in, were forcibly taken off the Bullring's property, with a security presence remaining around the Bullring square. Edd Bauer said, 'with the small number of people we had we decided the best thing to do was to do a peaceful sit in protest at the tax dodgers Vodafone in the Bullring'. A group of around five or six protesters were seen carrying a cardboard coffin around the University of Birmingham campus with the words 'R.I.P Higher Education' written on it earlier in
Freddie Herzog the morning. The group then joined another group of protesters from Birmingham City University in the city centre. Hattie Craig, the new president of the Broad Left society at the University of Birmingham said that the protest continued the fight against higher education cuts. 'The £9,000 fees aren't going to make up the gap and people are going to see things like a reduction in contact hours, increase in seminar sizes and all this is to the detriment of the quality of education we're going to receive and it could also devalue our degrees in the future.' Furse said that he felt the government would be unlikely to listen to the message of the protest. 'I think the government is very set on what it's doing and I think it takes serious action of large numbers of people to change anything.' The walkout on 14th March was part of a week of action to highlight concerns about high fees, hidden course costs and a lack of bursaries, all of which are 'pricing students out of education', according to the NUS. It is plan-
Other sabbs decline to take part ning to lobby Parliament on 18th April to raise awareness of the issues. The VPE believes that the protest would have attracted much more attention if it had been promoted and marketed more by both the Guild and the NUS. He said, 'The fact that the NUS and the Guild didn't mobilize for this meant that people didn't come out. Massive numbers of students take part in protests on campus so there is clearly a massive demand for this kind of thing, but when it's not advertised or promoted by the official organisers then people won't turn up and won't take it seriously.' Bauer added that the protest was 'an absolutely shocking failure on the part of our elected representatives. The Guild was mandated to support this protest with two motions through Guild Council, one in December and one last month. It wasn't until yesterday at 5 o'clock when two of the sabbs finally just posted the event to their Facebook profiles.' Hugo Sumner, Vice President (Democracy & Resources), said, 'The Guild is not mandated to sup-
...his successor, Furse, ejected moments later port the NUS Week of Action, there has been no Guild Council motion asking us to do so. As this was an issue concerning Higher Education, the Vice President (Education) saw it fit to attend, however because of the hospitalisations and arrests at the protest last month, which was organised by the Vice President (Education), the rest of the Sabbatical Officer Team did not feel it appropriate to attend.' Earlier this year, Edd Bauer was found not guilty of intentionally causing danger to the public and conspiring with others to do so, after spending ten days in Birmingham prison last September. Simon Furse was elected to succeed Bauer as the Vice President for Education for 2012/13. When Redbrick went to print, a motion was about to go through Thursday's Guild Council calling for the name of the education officer to be changed to education and campaigns. Check out the Redbrick website for yesterday's coverage of Guild Council at www.redbrickpaper.co.uk/guildcouncil.
Freddie Herzog
Simon Furse's manifesto: •
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Take back your campus: more student involvement in decisions made by the university Defend your education: fight to defend against loss of contact hours, course closures and cuts Work to keep your cost of study and living down: tackle all student costs from printer credits to campus food