education for the nation!

I'm not sure how much coverage this issue has gotten in the States (though here is a link to CNN's recent report), but there have been protests all over the UK about the proposed tuition hikes which are part of a massive educational budget cut from Parliament.

Basically, there's now a cap of £3k on tuition fees, and this would remove that cap. They may remove it entirely; they may cap it at £9k--I've heard both. Now, we who all just came out of (or are still in) US universities start thinking to ourselves, holy cow that's low. It is. It's really low compared to the junk we go through. But the UK doesn't have the system set up like we do: the student loans, the FAFSA, the private grants, the merit-based scholarships. This limitless tuition fee is really scary for the students here, and it's felt extra keenly at Oxford, where women and minorities historically excluded from participation in the University are only just now coming into their own.

The protests have been good. We hear stories about people who are arrested and injured, but it's actually been really peaceable. However. I have some problems with the current protest that's being staged...




This one takes place at the gorgeous Radcliffe Camera, a historic Oxford site as well as a member of the Bodleian Libraries. Some students have decided, in protest of the financial nonsense going on, to occupy the Radcliffe Camera. Occupy it. What is it, France?

The Rad Cam happens to be not only my favourite Bodleian reading room, but the major collection of English and History books. I cannot use it. I am, I think understandably, annoyed.

But that's not even my main problem. A protest ought to be symbolic: the location, the manner, all of it should have some meaning. On the High street, that protest said, we are so righteously indignant about this issue that it's spilling out of the classrooms and into the streets: not just the University, but this city and this country will change for the worse. And that's a good message, I think. That's why I went.

Ultimately, the basic message we should be sending is this one: I value my education, and I won't let you take it away from people like me--women like me, state-school kids like me, middle-class people like me, smart but unconnected people like me. The choice to render a library--which is itself highly symbolic (for the love of knowledge that we supposedly cherish, for the storehouse of great thinking that Oxford has become)--useless doesn't say I value my education. It locks up the protest: we can't see the faces and hear the voices and see the signs. And the inconvenienced are the ones who haven't done anything wrong...us. Me.

But no...they're dancing. Just a good old-fashioned dance party in the Rad Cam, for, um, like change or something.

When I lead the protest (which I won't, because I'm not a UK citizen or even going to be here for more than 10 months), we'll go to a government building. The protest should be against the perpetrator, not the victim. And then we'll fill up every available space--the reception room, the front lobby, the steps outside, the curb--and we'll pull out books and we'll read. We will take learning from them, if they won't give it to us.