A dire future

 Photographer: Marcello Pozzetti

I have been home the whole day nursing a head cold and marking the first batch of assignments. It is that time of the year.

As I progressed in my task, I could not help feeling angry, not at my students, but at the terrible situation they find themselves in. Some of my students are really making an effort to be at college, they are the first generation in their family to be educated to degree level  but rather than being able to celebrate such an achievement and look forward to a bright future  they face uncertainty.

Suddenly education from being a right has almost overnight been turned into a privilege of the wealthy.  At the demonstrations that took place the other day all over the country  there were schoolchildren as well, marching with the consent of their parents, because they are the ones who will not be able to go to college once they leave school.  What is being adopted for Higher Education over here is loosely based on  the American model,  but unlike the US, Britain does not offer students any scholarship nor can it really be  expected that  these young people should work while studying, there are simply not enough jobs. And there are not enough jobs for all those who  have already graduated.

The cuts in Higher Education are a profoundly unjust, pseudo-solution to heal the economy, adopted by a myopic government that has been in office for just over six months and which began its systematic work of destruction the moment the PM moved into 10 Downing Street.

The mood is very somber amongst teaching staff too. We all know our jobs can go any time. For those of us who are involved with 'soft subjects' (dance and drama are definitely among them) the future is dire. Gone are the days when we could think of doing creative research.   At the start of the academic year we were more or less told, in not too many words, that research funding would now go only to those employed by "research intensive"  universities, a handful at the very top.

Why is research so important?  Without research  teaching becomes stale and  the development of knowledge and understanding within a discipline cannot be ensured. Research and creativity go hand in hand.  But this is not something the present government seems to appreciate.  It says yes to  science subjects and the analytical skills they help to develop,  but the critical thinking that the humanities foster is regarded as unnecessary.

The dance department where I still teach  is  one of the very best in the country but it happens to be at a university that is not deemed to be among the top five or six "research intensive" establishments, which are traditional old universities. All the humanities subjects are going to have their teaching grants withdrawn, according to government plans, and universities specialising in arts and humanities disciplines will be forced to increase fees dramatically to survive. This is bound to have the  knock-on effect of creating a ‘mono-culture’, within the arts, of graduates almost exclusively from well-off backgrounds.  The ground covered over the last decades in increasing diversity will be lost.

 Photographer: PWPimages

What is the solution? Take to the streets and demonstrate. Students are doing it everywhere in England.  The behaviour of the police has been horrendous. At the London demonstration on wednesday students were kettled.  Elsewhere, they have been beaten up and subjected to aggression and brutality. But more demonstrations are planned.  It is time to join in, that's for sure, to say no to a government that puts a price on everything and values absolutely nothing.