Auckland students to protest attacks on education

Auckland students to protest attacks on education

Tuesday, 13 September 2011, 9:18 am
Media Release: F.L.O.W.E.R.S

Students at the University of Auckland will be protesting cuts to education from 4pm on Wednesday 14th September.

Spokesperson Guy Cohn says, "Locally, nationally and globally students are under attack from their own administrations and governments." He says, "At the University of Auckland Vice Chancellor Stuart McCutcheon is undertaking a protracted campaign to remove power from the hands of academics and students. Meanwhile, in the form of 'Voluntary Student Membership', the New Zealand state is about to institute the greatest attack on student power in decades."

Recently in Greece and Chile hundreds of universities have been occupied and hundreds of thousands of students have marched alongside workers against cuts. Cohn says, “The university is a community of scholars, but the space for critical thinking is steadily being eroded. The failure of Stuart McCutcheon and the government is reflected by the University of Auckland's sliding down the international university rankings.”

As part of wednesday's Nationwide Day of Student Action, University of Auckland students will be reclaiming the university for a 'Teach In' with the following programme:

4pm: ‘The Cake Plaque’
A reenactment of a reenactment which occurred at the site of the old Ponsonby People’s Union.

6.30pm: Human Rights Debate
AUSA and UN Youth organised debate: 'Is humanitarian intervention a tool to impose non-universal standards on human rights?'

8pm: Mohsen al Attar (law lecturer)
What would the University of Auckland look like if Malcolm X were Vice Chancellor?

8.30pm: Campbell Jones (sociology lecturer)
The university under capitalism

9pm: Discussion
How do we reassert student power?

Followed by collective writing, live folk music & a film.

ENDS

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