“The students’ manifesto demands that the government restore post-secondary funding, and provide more grants instead of loans to students applying for financial aid. “We are aware of arguments that would have us believe that our university degrees are a privilege that grant access to higher salaries and rewards. These arguments serve to justify the payment of tuition as a sort of access fee to a privileged stratum of society. We reject these arguments. While we agree that those who benefit more have a greater responsibility to support public institutions which guarantee the freedom of all, we feel that the Canada Income Tax Act currently serves this function, and should be used appropriately in the public interest.”"

-STU and UNB students are organizing against the neoliberal model for post-secondary education.

–Have a quick look at what happened yesterday in the US student movement.

–National Graduate Caucus of the Canadian Federation of Students responds to Budget 2010.

–Canadian Federation of Students respond to Budget 2010.

–National Aboriginal Caucus of the Canadian Federation of Students’ response to Budget 2010.

Apartheid week one-sided but not anti-Semitic – thestar.com.

“The voting irregularities were originally discovered by someone who is not a part of the elections committee and was brought to the attention of the elections committee during the first week of the reading break, after executive turnover had occurred. Oddly, Isabel said that whatever happened could only have been discovered by looking at detailed voting data. She also said the detailed data was not released publicly. So the tipster was somehow in a position to have access to the unreleased data while not being on the elections committee. When asked whether this person was a student, Isabel replied that she “can’t say”.”

-It seems that the online voting in the UBC AMS elections was tampered with in some way, and they are now investigating the scope of the voting fraud.

“Recommendations contained in the report titled Pact for the Competitive Financing of our Universities, released today, would lead to skyrocketing student debt for Québec students.”

–Students need to mobilise to fight this increase. The University of New Brunswick is wasting millions of dollars on projects that have nothing to do with their primary mission, but at the same time are raising fees on students. With wages in New Brunswick at the low end of the national scale and debt-levels among the highest in the country, students cannot deal with fee increase from an administration that refuses to put students first.

“”We’re not against new schools, but we want schools that are owned by the taxpayers of New Brunswick, not schools that are owned by multinational corporations and are simply leased back over 30 years,” said CUPE spokesman Danny Legere.

A recent report in N.S. on P3s revealed that, “two of the developers subcontracted some of their responsibilities to the regional school boards, which were delivering the services at a lower cost than what was paid to the developers — a difference of about $52 million over the 20-year life of the contracts, according to the report.”

–Obviously, this is outrageous. The student movement in Venezuela continues to be lead by the right-wing.

–Unbelievable.

–The Canadian Federation of Students have put out a release highlighting new data on student debt by StatsCan.

From the Release:
According to the study well over a majority of students borrowed to finance their post-secondary education, up almost 10% from a decade earlier. The proportion of graduates with high debt loads (over $25,000) increased by more than 50% during the same period, from 17% to 27%. Recent graduates who borrowed to finance their education were significantly less likely to have savings and investments and to own their own homes. The study did not provide information on students who could not afford to complete their degrees.

“”There is not a lot of new ground to break in this area, the research has
already been done,” said Kaley Kennedy, Chairperson of the Canadian
Federation of Students-Nova Scotia. “In this economic climate, we need the
government to deliver, not defer to outside consultants.”"

-The Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations (ANSSA), however, is “welcoming” the “Government Decision to Seek External Advice on Post-Secondary Education System”

–Drop fees! Grants not loans! This isn’t a politically-neutral, technical issue to be analysed by a banker.

Please read SAIA’s Israeli Apartheid Week Endorsement Proposal and distribute freely.

“This year Apartheid Week [March 01-06, 2010] is in its sixth annual and will take place concurrently in over 40 cities worldwide, including Toronto, Montreal, New York, Philadelphia, Bay Area, Chicago, Washington, London, Oxford, and cities in South Africa. For more information about Israeli Apartheid week, please visit our website … The success of Israeli Apartheid Week depends on the support we receive every year from various groups across the city and in universities. Please let us know if you would like to be listed as an endorser of Israeli Apartheid Week (email your endorsement to saia@riseup.net). We would also very much appreciate it if you could forward the schedule of the week’s events to your members when the time comes to distribute the week’s call-out.”

UNBSU effectively bans teams of candidates from running in SU elections, continues using online voting, allows fines levied by the CRO to count against campaign expense limits.

–This is clearly a responsive to the challenge raised by the United For Change team in the elections last year. United For Change campaigned vocally on politics instead of vague and empty slogans (cf. Former president Bethany Vail’s promise to, “engage, entertain, electrify”).

–Open Access now!

“Bourgeois, who teaches women’s and gender studies at the University of Toronto, says she doubts the challenges facing women’s bookstores has anything to do with a lack of interest in feminism.

Rather, it’s primarily competition from large book retailers who can sell online cheaply and offer larger discounts, said Bourgeois. Between 70 and 75 per cent of the store’s sales are tied to university courses, a market that’s also undergoing a “substantial” change as more professors assign online material, she said.”

–Students and faculty continue to fight back against regressive and damaging changes to the way that the public research is funded. Governments that move to foster increased rates of commercialisation of university research only undermine long-term innovation and the health of research communities.

For more information on the damaging effects of the push for increased commercialisation of university research see Public Risk, Private Gain (pdf) produced by the Canadian Federation of Students.

YouTube – Students Deliver +90,000 Postcards Calling for Lower Fees.

–”Recommendations released by the federal Finance Committee yesterday, failed to adequately address the chronic underfunding of basic university research and graduate studies in Canada.”

–That’s a lot of occupations. The fight back against the Bologna Process has begun!

Unsere Unis (by zurPolitik.com) – Google Maps.