Cuts in further education colleges

The cuts outlined by the condem coalition will be a savage attack on further education colleges, particularly in the adult education region.  £200 million will be cut in adult education, which will result in many courses being discontinued because of a lack of funding.  For adult colleges, an average of 16% of spending cuts will be implemented. This will be devastating for colleges; they will be unable to update their materials and resources, leading to a degrading educational experience and reducing the quality of education. The cuts will mean more applicants will be turned away. Already inadequate apprentiships will be compromised so that more students will be clogged in doing donkey work for businesses and not really learning anything of value to help them in the working world. They are more likely to learn how to deal with alienation at work, accepting orders without question and will be convinced that their low positions are their own making, rather then blaming the capitalist system, which has implemented these cuts and punishing the majority rather than the minority who caused the recession.

These cuts will see job losses of staff in colleges and bigger class sizes. This is inefficient and the quality of education is unfairly reduced. The already inadequate EMA grant will be reduced, and this will force young people into unskilled and low paid work, because it is too costly for them to be in full time education. With these cuts in education, the economy can’t move forward because of an inadequate number of skilled people, yet there will be a scrap heap of unskilled people, willing to accept low paid work or face poverty, which is a delight for the capitalists who exploit their cheap labour.

We demand that these cuts should be halted as they do not serve in the interest of the majority.  We demand that EMA should be increased, and an end to cruel means testing making EMA available to everyone. Free education from infancy to university should be implemented along with a living allowance grant while studying. We demand that all aprrentaships should have a guarantee at the job at the end, and to offer union rates of pay. Millions of jobs can be created by creating environmentally friendly public services. Only a working class movement can achieve this of workers and students as the needs of the majority will topple the needs of the minority.