Campaigners call for day of action in November and strike in 2016 over ‘biggest attack on public education in decades’

Students are stepping up their campaign against government reforms for higher education with a series of demonstrations, sit-ins and strikes planned for the coming months.



Campaigners who organised a major protest in London earlier this month have called for another day of action on 26 November and a two-day strike in the new year.

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Deborah Hermanns, from the National Campaign against Fees and Cuts, which is organising the protests, said: “The reforms introduced by this Tory government represent the biggest attack on public education in decades. As a result of the further marketisation proposed in the higher education green paper and cuts to maintenance grants, thousands of students will be priced out of education and the whole structure of the sector will change, creating a multi-tier system and attacking poorer students and institutions.”

Ten thousand people took to the streets of central London this month to voice their anger over the government’s “attacks on free education”. The demonstration ended in scuffles with the police, who were accused of excessive violence by some of the protesters.

Since then the government has unveiled its higher education green paper, which students say represents a concerted attack on the purpose of free education.

Activists are now organising a two-day strike in February next year which could see thousands of students walk out of lectures at campuses around the country.

The campaign has received backing from the top of the Labour party. The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, spoke at this month’s rally, and many of the students taking a lead in the campaign were involved in Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership bid.