Tuesday February 3 2009 studentnewspaper.org
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Ready Steady Rector Rock’n’Rector: candidates George Foulkes, George Galloway & Iain MacWhirter make the case for your vote on February 11th & 12th George Foulkes
’m sitting in my office in the ScotIStudent tish Parliament reading a copy of from 1970. The headline news
was the sensational discovery that the University had hundreds of thousands of pounds invested in South African businesses, mostly mining companies, who were the worst perpetrators of the apartheid labour laws. These companies made huge profits at the expense of the human rights of thousands of black workers who were exploited mercilessly. I was the SRC President here in 1963 and later President of the Scottish Union of Students – which predated NUS Scotland. By 1970, I was still serving the university as the Rector’s Assessor to Kenneth Allsop. Kenneth and I championed the campaign to rid the University of these investments
George Galloway or 18 years I represented the F Glasgow West constituency covering Strathclyde University and many
thousands of students. My current parliamentary constituency covers the City site of London Metropolitan University, which has just announced staggering cuts of £18 million – with 330 teaching posts to go – as the universities funding quango seeks to claw back money it has overpaid. I know about the issues that affect students and staff, even though I’ve never been a student myself. I am part of a generation who paid for others to go to university, for free and with a grant, and were happy to do so. Education is an investment in the nation’s future. It’s not a cost, or a business opportunity. That’s the philosophy I seek to bring to the post of Lord Rector. Underlying the myriad immediate problems students and staff face is the commercialisation and under-funding of our universities. Staff are measured and graded by bean counters who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. The result is too little interaction between staff and students, which is what most of us thought universities were about. The squeeze on student housing
which were indirectly propping up racial exploitation. I’ve spent my whole working life promoting social justice and equality. I’ve been a Councillor, an MP and a Government Minister. I spent four years in the Department of International Development and was responsible for the huge investment in Gaza’s water and sewage system and I’ve visited Beirzit University which Edinburgh is twinned with. If you want to know more about my views on Israel and Gaza you can read my article in the Guardian which you can google or find on my website. I’m uniquely placed in this election to be both a local, working rector and a rector with the power and influence to really act in the University’s best interests. In the 1960s, just 1 in every 10 young people went to university. You simply had to be extremely academically gifted or rich. The future of the British economy depended on manufacturing and heavy industry, car making, ship building and coal mining all drove the economy. Five decades later, the future of our economy lies in the innovation and skills of the students, postgraduates and academics studying at world class institutions like Edinburgh. Renewable Energy, Life Sciences and Informatics are all industries which, through the power of ideas and innovation generated here in Edinburgh, Scotland can lead the world on.
The University is about to embark on a huge investment programme – £100 millions worth of infrastructure. Part of the money will be spent on a new centre for regenerative medicine. A world class centre of excellence where medical advances travel straight from the Petri-dish to the patient. The power education has to shape the world has never been more important. It is why I’m standing for Rector of an institution that I’m proud to be a graduate of, and to have served in a number of ways for five decades. I live in Bruntsfield and spend the best part of my working week in the Scottish Parliament where I serve as the MSP for Edinburgh and the Lothians. I’ve also signed the Rector’s Charter which means I have pledged to be an impartial representative of all students and staff. One example is the issue of feedback. Students have consistently told me that the quality of feedback they get isn’t good enough and staff are clear that when it comes to marking, the existing structures don’t support them enough. To address this problem, we must ensure that the University places as high a value on teaching as it does research. That’s a difficult thing to achieve when so much of the University’s income is reliant on research grants. What’s more, we must ensure that lecturers and tutors are paid properly not just to teach - but to mark as well. Sadly, like most things in life, it all
boils down to money and the University simply doesn’t have enough of it. The funding settlement which the University received from the Scottish Government was poor, accentuating an already growing gap between Scottish and English higher education institutions. The Scottish Government made significant hay out of the abolition of the graduate endowment. But that policy did nothing to alleviate student hardship or improve retention figures. Just last week, HESA, the Higher Education Statistics Agency, released figures demonstrating that the number of students applying for University is falling in Scotland whilst it’s increasing in England and Wales. In an increasingly worrying economic climate, there is a very clear and pressing danger that young people studying for their Highers today will decide that they simply cannot afford to go to university. That’s not just a tragedy for the potential of that individual, it could have a devastating impact on the economic future of our country – the United Kingdom. That’s why my manifesto focuses on the issues of student hardship. I want to see a guaranteed minimum income of £7,000 for the poorest. It’s a policy I’m currently pursuing in the Scottish Parliament and I’m the only candidate in this race who has the ability to actually deliver it. I’m also championing the case for a
and finance is a direct result of running services on a business model. Staff to student ratios have declined hugely in the last 15 years, meaning staff are over-stretched and students underresourced. Students and staff cannot not be victims of this economic crisis; education might cost money, but ignorance costs far more. More students than ever before are working part-time to fund their education, and more staff are on short-term contracts. Would James Clerk Maxwell have been able to revolutionise physics if he had spent his time at Edinburgh shelf-stacking in Tesco’s to pay for his education? Would Joseph Lister have been able to research and develop the use of antiseptics so effectively if he had been on a temporary research contract? The next three years are going to be very hard across the public sector, and for universities and students especially. The Westminster government talks of a ‘fiscal stimulus’ now –billions to bail out the banks – but all the main political parties are preparing for deep public sector cuts following the next general election. That’s the overarching backdrop to your mounting concerns. It would be light-minded to pretend that any Lord Rector can themselves assuage them. What the occupier of that post can do, however, is to be a loud and clear voice for staff and students, and
independent of party machine or cosy consensus. Even my opponents would concede that I have a loud voice and am not afraid to speak the truth to power. If elected Lord Rector that voice and campaigning energy would be turned to your concerns. My manifesto details the improvements I think the University can make now to ensure that you get the most from your time at university. We need more resources to help graduating students find jobs; greater flexibility and investment in teaching in today’s 24-hour, globalised world; better and more sustainable student finance; and lower prices for food, accommodation and other University services. I was asked to enter this race for another reason too. For over 30 years I have been associated with the Palestinian cause. For the last eight I have been one of the leaders of the movement against George Bush and Tony Blair’s policy of war after war. That policy has brought disaster and its only proponent in this Rectorial race – Lord Foulkes – would be a disaster. He supports exactly the nexus between public authority and big business, which has brought such economic uncertainty and scandal. I would like to see Edinburgh University as a beacon to students around the world studying in almost impossible conditions. I would have spoken out as your
Rector last month against the destruction of the University of Gaza. Edinburgh is a city and a university known around the world. Its voice can matter. In any case, it would the narrowest parochialism to imagine that events “over there” have no bearing on us “over here”. Edinburgh University must facilitate the spread of ideas, not just in the UK, or in Europe, but around the world. To build a better future we need to communicate with the world as best we can and do our bit to facilitate the
course c o s t bursary. A one off bursary available to students at Edinburgh with extra costs for books, stethoscopes, lab coats, dissection kits, software and safety kits. Why should one student have less money to live off purely because of the nature of their course of study? Having spent a lot of time at Kings Buildings and George Square over the past few weeks and months, I’ve picked up a real sense of worry within the university community. Nobody’s sure how deep this recession will be or quite how it will impact on the University. People are worried about cuts to budgets and services. If there’s one thing above all which I hope to achieve as your Rector, it will be to help steer the University through this difficult economic period. My primary concern will be ensuring that that welfare and pastoral services, hardship funds and scholarships are all protected and that the University builds on its status as a beacon of excellence around the world.
spread of ideas. If you make me your rector I will forge greater links universities in the rising east in the global south. Unfortunately, you as staff and students do not get to vote on the policies that affect your careers and learning. Nor, in truth, does the Rector. But you can with this vote signal a new line of march, the direction you would like to see this university advance in. I hope you’ll seize that opportunity.