IMMEDIATE RELEASE 27 January 2004
Commenting on today’s House of Commons debate on top up fees, Doug McAvoy, NUT General Secretary, said:
“The Government’s plan illustrates its political philosophy rather than a desire to ensure our universities are adequately funded. The Prime Minister has acknowledged that the money raised will not be sufficient to ensure stable and adequate funding for the future.
“The plan to freeze fee levels for a period means that the existing inadequacy in funding will become worse.
“One danger the NUT perceives from this bill is the extension of a market place philosophy elsewhere. Currently we see it in the Home Secretary, David Blunkett’s approach to policing where he is proposing to encourage communities to fund for themselves additional security.
“This leads me to fear that parents will be asked to fund for themselves better class sizes for their children and to fund for themselves the employment of qualified teachers rather than the use of unqualified person to teach their children.
“Once the principle of variable payment for more or better provision of education is established, rather than funding through direct taxation, then it is right for us to fear the extension of that principle to elsewhere in the education service”
E N D PR.06/04
For further information contact: Olive Forsythe tel: 020 7380 4706 (office) 020 8313 1692 (weekday evenings) or 07879 480061.