The long bourgeois revolution in HE …

Browsing through the newly available Radical Philosophy archive, I came across a brief article written by ‘The Critical Lawyers Group, University of Kent.

Education Changes: The Hidden Agenda was written in 1992 and serves as a reminder of the long-term agendas in play:

“The claim that [these measures] will increase access to higher education is just as fraudulent. The real problem of access to higher education is not and never has been’ time’ , nor ‘flexibility’ ,nor location, it has always been money, the refusal by government to properly fund good quality education. 

…

“Finally, in enthusiastically endorsing these proposals, the University continually stresses the ways in which they will enhance student ‘power’; a remarkable conversion to something they have vigorously opposed in the past! The reason, of course, is that the alleged ‘power’ that [it] gives to students is the harmless, disempowering, fragmented power of the individual ‘consumer’ confronted (on a purely ‘take it or leave it’ basis) by pre-packaged, ‘off the shelf’, ‘products’. Real student power can only be achieved by greatly increasing student representation on University bodies, on departmental committees and the like; by increasing collective student power on the important decision-making c.ommittees of the University from Council down.”