Today at Aberdeen University 40+ students, , a UCU representative and the president of NUS Scotland joined together to protest against the imminent attacks on our education under the banner of Aberdeen Defend Education Campaign(ADEC). We congregated in the centre of campus to protest against the re-introduction of tuition fees, commercialisation of research and the potential privatisation and outsourcing of University staff. There was also a Banner drop to mark the start of the protest from the historical heart of the University: Kings College. ADEC has not been active for very long and the response was overwhelmingly positive. The demonstration was told by the president of the Aberdeen UCU branch that they had the support of the majority of Aberdeen university staff who would join us in our struggle. The Protest later moved and marched down the road to the main office to hand in the petition which hundreds had signed, in well under a week, to the university principle. (The same principle that received a 17% pay increase bringing his salary to just under 300,000 pounds) However he was not present as he is currently in London being knighted. The students then marched into the office and had a temporary sit in of the reception area for around half an hour causing some disruption until a vice principle appeared to receive the petition and discuss the issue with us.
The whole group of people present was ushered into a meeting room to discuss our concern with the aptly named vice-principal for research and commercialisation met with us and engaged a one and a half hour meeting where all our anger, concerns, experiences and fears were presented to the vice principle who in all fairness was responsive and noted down all our key demands and arguments to be presented before the next management meeting and to the principle himself. All in all the day was a success considering the infancy of the group. The ball is in the universities court now as we have made our demands heard and taken it to the top of the university system. However it is no justification for feel good complacency as the University formulises its response. The struggle to keep education open to all and defend staff’s jobs will be an ongoing one, especially in this neo-liberal crisis. We recognise this as a wider struggle that will inevitably affect all public education from primary to University level which means branching out, to include primary and secondry schools.

United we can win.