'Senate, come off it! education is not for profits!'
If an overseas education was all about a whole new experience, monday certainly was one good lesson. i broke one of the biggest traditional singaporean taboos. nope, i didn't smoke weed. neither did i pop pills nor my cherry. i took part in a quasi-militant protest against implementing full-fee payments for domestic students, albeit as a silent observer giving moral support and clapping to the slogan chanting.
Now here's some of the background infomation on what this big hoo-hah is all about. From what i gather, the aussie students finance the bulk of the cost of their university education through a system called the HECS in which each individual student only pays about $4000-$5000 per yr upfront. The repayment of the remainder of the cost comes in the form of installments through yearly taxation when the students eventually graduate and start to work. This ostensibly seems to be a pretty equitable idea, considering how it shifts the burden of financing tertiary education away from the general taxpayers (a majority whom did not receive a tertiary education) and specifically to the university graduates who are afterall the ones who benefit from a teritary education. The problem with this is that there are many foreigners who abuse the system by getting permanent residency and hence access to HECS, and upon graduation, return to their home country leaving their PR status and shitload of tax liabilities behind. In response to this growing inefficacy of HECS in financing tertiary education, the Commonwealth government therefore decided to pass a law allowing each university to have the option of charging full-fee upfront payments on undergraduates. What this means, is that each student would now have to take up a study loan to pay for their fees upfront (the interest charged would certainly be higher than HECS), and will have to service the loans even before they start working. It is estimated that under this policy, professional courses such as medicine can cost up to AUD$210,000. Many students interpret this as an attack on public education and believe this would lead to social stratification where the rich and stupid are given priority in university admission over the qualified but poorer students, by virtue of the fact that they can afford it. The crux of it all here is that in order for the policy to come into effect in UWA, it requires the ratification of the UWA senate which convened on monday. The only problem here was that the senate is hardly a credible representation of student interests when only 6 out of the 21 seats are occupied by members of the Student's Guild. The vast majority are old hacks appointed by the state government who have little or no interests in the policy which almost exclusively affects the undergrads. Of course, one could argue that the old hacks may have children who would eventually go on to university and hence they have a stake in the issue as well. But judging from past voting patterns such as a previous vote on HECS increases (another unpopular policy) earlier this year which was passed with the 15/21 majority, it is widely perceived that the senate aligns to student interests no more than Motaqda Al-Sadr's alignment to American interests in Iraq.
University fee hikes don't happen here everyday, protests neither and never ever in Singapore. So there i was, at 1530 hrs at the Guild Village witnessing a manifestation of civil disobedience.
It wasn't so much of the fact that such a thing never occured in Singapore (in fact it did happen before in the 1960s when students from Chinese High and Chung Cheng High took over their schools, barricaded themselves and had a hunger strike in protest to the implentation of military conscription) that interest me. What was really struck me more than the novelty of the whole shebang was that the spontaniety of the entire anti-fees hike campaign. Right from the start of the campaign, all the publicity, speeches, protests and all other anti-full fee paraphernalia were all solely done by the students, not even any association per se, just like minded students who believed that they should rise to such injustices. Now think about student unions in like Singapore, what do u think the NTU students' union would do in the event something similar happens? Would they a) divert embittered undergraduates attention away by organising yet another awful tertiary bash? b) convene an EGM to discuss new kinky ideas for orientation besides the cliched 'stripping-in sea' forfeits? or c) spend 1/3 of their budget on a campaign to extol the excellent foresight of our esteemed leadership and rally behind the policy our wise leaders formulated proclaiming that all undergraduates will readily swallow the bitter pill for the collective good even if it means giving up 1/2 of all places in the cohort to PRC and Indian scholars or prostituting one's self to finance one's way through university? Policymakers cannot lament the Singaporean apathy to engage with government policies without actually removing impediments to foster a certain level of civil activism or at the very least, removing impediments to freedom of speech, unless of course it was never the true intention for them to engage in the first place. With ambiguous OB markers, lame-duck unionised organisations and a long list of slander/libel case precedents, the only form of engagement you're gonna get is the those of the model worker/student/grass root leader whose questions are heavily vetted beforehand and only when the questions are deem comformist enough not to shock the 'conservative confucianistist asian ' political values of Singaporeans, can they appear on tv with an incoming prime minister, complete with images of them chatting happily in hawker centres and old army anecdotes of a certain Commanding Officer without a tinge of arrogance. Tokenistc liberalising of the political climate is a 'Slap In The Face' to any ideals for a Singaporean civil society.....
Now back to the story. The protest started with several student speeches at the guild. One described it as 'the first of another wave of barrage on public education', another 'polarising of the australian society where the only the rich will receive a university education'
One of the speakers was Fred. He's a pretty friendly guy especially for an old-time activist. Well in fact all the actvists are friendly and more chatty and the average ang moh. It was him who explained the intricasies of the HECS and now the full-fee policy when I was just there not understanding a jack shit about the significance of the the whole issue. Fred's also from the resistance organisation, some socialist democratic group that organised some very good forums (such as one on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a palestinian ambassador as the guest speaker). That probably explains why he's at the vanguard of the campaign. When not busy attending classes, you'll always see Fred distributing pamphelets and newsletters not unlike a certain Singaporean psychologist in the streets of orchard road.
After the speeches were made, and the crowd deemed enthusiastic enough to parade, the march began. Well I wouldn't say the crowd was large enough to make a ground shattering impact (especially since the campus was relatively quiet since it was already three and it rained heavily before that) but it was sizable. Slogans were chanted, hands clapping to the rhythmn spirts where high. Here are some of the more interesting slogans. it ranged from the placcid:
'The fees, the fees, the fee is for decrease!'
'Hey Hey! UWA! We don't want full fees today'
'No ifs, no buts! No fees no cuts!'
'Senate come off it! Education is not for profit!'
to the less pristine....
'HEY SENATE! You're selling..our uni...FUCK OFF!!!'
Then the teeming masses arrived outside the adminstrative building near Winthrop Hall where the senate meeting convened. The security guards were already on stand-by. For the next hour and a half, the chanting went on, and 3 students suddenly decided it was a good idea to bang on the locked entrance to the senate meeting
They banged on the door to the beat of the slogan chants until one of the smaller glass panes shattered. The security guard at the inside took out his camera phone and started taking pictures of the perpetrators. 2 of the bangers wormed out. the remaining one posed with a V-Sign and carried on banging for a little while more....
The eventuality happen, the crowd grew tired of chanting so they switched letting whoever had any comments on the whole issue to say a few words. The speeches and comments varied from the pleading
'Please register to vote! Together we can throw John Howard and Liberal Party out of office'
to the outright militant:
'WHERE'S HIS FUCKING CAR???' - a response from the crowd to Fred's speech when he described one of the senate members as the prime instigator who wanted full-fees in UWA.
At around five fifteen, everyone decided that the meeting would probably stretch till late evening and so everyone decided to adjourne to the Tavern and the crowd dispersed. A total anti-climax. Ironically, if there's anything that can divert aussie attention away or break resolve, it has to be alcohol. Perhaps that might be a good idea after all, reduce beer prices at the Tavern or have few flow every friday and who knows that might just placate any discontentment to the full-fee policy.
Now here's some of the background infomation on what this big hoo-hah is all about. From what i gather, the aussie students finance the bulk of the cost of their university education through a system called the HECS in which each individual student only pays about $4000-$5000 per yr upfront. The repayment of the remainder of the cost comes in the form of installments through yearly taxation when the students eventually graduate and start to work. This ostensibly seems to be a pretty equitable idea, considering how it shifts the burden of financing tertiary education away from the general taxpayers (a majority whom did not receive a tertiary education) and specifically to the university graduates who are afterall the ones who benefit from a teritary education. The problem with this is that there are many foreigners who abuse the system by getting permanent residency and hence access to HECS, and upon graduation, return to their home country leaving their PR status and shitload of tax liabilities behind. In response to this growing inefficacy of HECS in financing tertiary education, the Commonwealth government therefore decided to pass a law allowing each university to have the option of charging full-fee upfront payments on undergraduates. What this means, is that each student would now have to take up a study loan to pay for their fees upfront (the interest charged would certainly be higher than HECS), and will have to service the loans even before they start working. It is estimated that under this policy, professional courses such as medicine can cost up to AUD$210,000. Many students interpret this as an attack on public education and believe this would lead to social stratification where the rich and stupid are given priority in university admission over the qualified but poorer students, by virtue of the fact that they can afford it. The crux of it all here is that in order for the policy to come into effect in UWA, it requires the ratification of the UWA senate which convened on monday. The only problem here was that the senate is hardly a credible representation of student interests when only 6 out of the 21 seats are occupied by members of the Student's Guild. The vast majority are old hacks appointed by the state government who have little or no interests in the policy which almost exclusively affects the undergrads. Of course, one could argue that the old hacks may have children who would eventually go on to university and hence they have a stake in the issue as well. But judging from past voting patterns such as a previous vote on HECS increases (another unpopular policy) earlier this year which was passed with the 15/21 majority, it is widely perceived that the senate aligns to student interests no more than Motaqda Al-Sadr's alignment to American interests in Iraq.
University fee hikes don't happen here everyday, protests neither and never ever in Singapore. So there i was, at 1530 hrs at the Guild Village witnessing a manifestation of civil disobedience.
It wasn't so much of the fact that such a thing never occured in Singapore (in fact it did happen before in the 1960s when students from Chinese High and Chung Cheng High took over their schools, barricaded themselves and had a hunger strike in protest to the implentation of military conscription) that interest me. What was really struck me more than the novelty of the whole shebang was that the spontaniety of the entire anti-fees hike campaign. Right from the start of the campaign, all the publicity, speeches, protests and all other anti-full fee paraphernalia were all solely done by the students, not even any association per se, just like minded students who believed that they should rise to such injustices. Now think about student unions in like Singapore, what do u think the NTU students' union would do in the event something similar happens? Would they a) divert embittered undergraduates attention away by organising yet another awful tertiary bash? b) convene an EGM to discuss new kinky ideas for orientation besides the cliched 'stripping-in sea' forfeits? or c) spend 1/3 of their budget on a campaign to extol the excellent foresight of our esteemed leadership and rally behind the policy our wise leaders formulated proclaiming that all undergraduates will readily swallow the bitter pill for the collective good even if it means giving up 1/2 of all places in the cohort to PRC and Indian scholars or prostituting one's self to finance one's way through university? Policymakers cannot lament the Singaporean apathy to engage with government policies without actually removing impediments to foster a certain level of civil activism or at the very least, removing impediments to freedom of speech, unless of course it was never the true intention for them to engage in the first place. With ambiguous OB markers, lame-duck unionised organisations and a long list of slander/libel case precedents, the only form of engagement you're gonna get is the those of the model worker/student/grass root leader whose questions are heavily vetted beforehand and only when the questions are deem comformist enough not to shock the 'conservative confucianistist asian ' political values of Singaporeans, can they appear on tv with an incoming prime minister, complete with images of them chatting happily in hawker centres and old army anecdotes of a certain Commanding Officer without a tinge of arrogance. Tokenistc liberalising of the political climate is a 'Slap In The Face' to any ideals for a Singaporean civil society.....
Now back to the story. The protest started with several student speeches at the guild. One described it as 'the first of another wave of barrage on public education', another 'polarising of the australian society where the only the rich will receive a university education'
One of the speakers was Fred. He's a pretty friendly guy especially for an old-time activist. Well in fact all the actvists are friendly and more chatty and the average ang moh. It was him who explained the intricasies of the HECS and now the full-fee policy when I was just there not understanding a jack shit about the significance of the the whole issue. Fred's also from the resistance organisation, some socialist democratic group that organised some very good forums (such as one on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a palestinian ambassador as the guest speaker). That probably explains why he's at the vanguard of the campaign. When not busy attending classes, you'll always see Fred distributing pamphelets and newsletters not unlike a certain Singaporean psychologist in the streets of orchard road.
After the speeches were made, and the crowd deemed enthusiastic enough to parade, the march began. Well I wouldn't say the crowd was large enough to make a ground shattering impact (especially since the campus was relatively quiet since it was already three and it rained heavily before that) but it was sizable. Slogans were chanted, hands clapping to the rhythmn spirts where high. Here are some of the more interesting slogans. it ranged from the placcid:
'The fees, the fees, the fee is for decrease!'
'Hey Hey! UWA! We don't want full fees today'
'No ifs, no buts! No fees no cuts!'
'Senate come off it! Education is not for profit!'
to the less pristine....
'HEY SENATE! You're selling..our uni...FUCK OFF!!!'
Then the teeming masses arrived outside the adminstrative building near Winthrop Hall where the senate meeting convened. The security guards were already on stand-by. For the next hour and a half, the chanting went on, and 3 students suddenly decided it was a good idea to bang on the locked entrance to the senate meeting
They banged on the door to the beat of the slogan chants until one of the smaller glass panes shattered. The security guard at the inside took out his camera phone and started taking pictures of the perpetrators. 2 of the bangers wormed out. the remaining one posed with a V-Sign and carried on banging for a little while more....
The eventuality happen, the crowd grew tired of chanting so they switched letting whoever had any comments on the whole issue to say a few words. The speeches and comments varied from the pleading
'Please register to vote! Together we can throw John Howard and Liberal Party out of office'
to the outright militant:
'WHERE'S HIS FUCKING CAR???' - a response from the crowd to Fred's speech when he described one of the senate members as the prime instigator who wanted full-fees in UWA.
At around five fifteen, everyone decided that the meeting would probably stretch till late evening and so everyone decided to adjourne to the Tavern and the crowd dispersed. A total anti-climax. Ironically, if there's anything that can divert aussie attention away or break resolve, it has to be alcohol. Perhaps that might be a good idea after all, reduce beer prices at the Tavern or have few flow every friday and who knows that might just placate any discontentment to the full-fee policy.
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