Education is the root of society

Education is the root of society. Primary, Secondary, Further and Higher education form the basis of society. Without educating individuals the world falls apart. All values regarded as important by a right wing government, ambition, innovation and wealth will suffer, intelligence muted. For the left, we see that social inequality will increase, social mobility will be devastated and the chance of a place where equal opportunities bloom is a dream that is killed by inability to succeed due to narrow minded, short-sighted cuts. Extracting quality education from society is like pulling out the roots of a tree. That tree will die. Our society, our culture, our pride and not only our country but our world is condemned.

Throughout the media it is shown that these protests are merely about the hike in tuition fees. For me, this is not the most pressing issue. In a perfect society education would be free. However what I see as the cuts that will have a more direct effect on the individual is the cuts to the teaching grants and the scrapping of the EMA. Not only are the politicians placing the higher cost of education on the students; they are making them pay more for less. Those who wish to study Humanities degrees will not only be faced by higher fees but by departments that struggle to survive with no help from Government. Do these politicians not see that Arts and Humanities are essential in understanding the world? Do they not see that without International relations and those academic who research world issues the governability of Britain will suffer, linguists will become scarce and Art will be transformed into a ‘rational’ money making process. People don’t just go University or College to get a better chance of a well-paid job. They don’t just want to spend 3 years lazing around doing nothing. If this were the case then why have so many students protested in the last few months? If we really didn’t care what education was then we wouldn’t protest. Education for the sake of education, for the sake of broadening our knowledge, with the aim not just to ‘better ourselves’ but to better the world we live in. Rationality is not always the answer, no one else can dream for you. But that is exactly what this government is doing, constructing a society driven solely on a financial basis with no room for diversity or creative arts. Have the conservatives forgotten the individual?

We need to turn this decision upside down; we need to convince the general public that education is a public good. We need to unite. In this day and age it is not acceptable that a politician be allowed to lie to get into power, be it a coalition or not. Nick Clegg should break the coalition if he were really a true liberal, if he were really an honest noble man true to his word. I thought that liberals traditionally defended education, fought for it; I didn’t think they attacked it. If we do not fight, if we do not mobilise, we will be faced with a situation graver than a few kids not going to university. We will see 16 year olds unable to go to college, let alone dream of University. We will see a society dumbed down in order for the conservatives to retake what they lost, to steal the milk, to sell the workers public property for them to be charged more for using a service that was previously public. We will see the conservatives gauge their vicious teeth into our society, into our homes, into our families and into our lives.