Humanities and Social Sciences has cut tutorials from 12 a semester to 10 in
a number of classes, and such cuts will likely be implemented in further
classes next year. Moreover, sources indicate that the faculty has even
considered cutting tutorials down to 9. Professor Pascale Quester and
Professor Nick Harvey maintained at a recent forum that the cuts were driven
by pedagogical reasons. However, the lack of student consultation prior to the cuts puts the lie to this position.
The recent leak of internal email proved that the cuts were driven by a budget hole,after the faculty was forced to pay tutors to mark students’ minor essays, rubber-stamping what we already knew. Even so, Quester and Harvey have continued to maintain the farce that these cuts aim to improve learning.
Raff Piccolo, President of the Student Union, having met with Quester and Harvey, said that, “They have agreed that the plan to introduce the reduction in tutorials into the school of history and politics will not go ahead for semester 1, 2012. It will be confined to the course in the school of social sciences and the few history and politics courses that trialled it this semester. There will be an evaluation of the impact that this has had on the teaching and learning experience of students”. Cleary, Quester and Harvey have been forced to backpedal due to the student/teacher backlash and the subsequent embarrassing media attention.
In trying to disguise the true rationale behind tutorial cuts, Pascale Quester and the faculty’s management have demonstrated that they cannot be trusted. It appears they are largely concerned with cutting costs while attempting to save face with students and the media. Their promise to evaluate the effect of the cuts at the end of the year is a known tactic used by management to split opposition movements with vague and intangible promises for the future.
In a broader context, these cuts can be seen as a natural outcome of
the neo-liberalisation of Australia’s education system. With the decline of
federal funding for university education – predicated on principles of the
free market and privatised education – student learning will suffer as
universities increasingly come to resemble businesses; financial entities
looking to maintain their profit margins rather than genuine providers of
meaningful education.
Students need to continue to organise to fight these cuts! We must not be fooled by
hollow promises made by management, which are meant only to divide us.
Instead, we must put forward demands of our own:
No to the tutorial cuts!
No to attacks on our education!
We must continue to organise and fight to make sure our demands are met!
'They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.' - Solidarity Forever
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This joint statement was written by members of Organise! & Resistance Wednesday 7th of September, and given out at a student assembly in the evening on the 8th.
