Flickr/ Daniel Arauz.Some rights reserved.
Students in the UK have launched a campaign for a student strike in response to the government’s latest attacks on education. In particular they want to stop the incredibly unpopular conversion of maintenance grants into loans that puts the poorest students in the most debt. They also hope to get the National Union of Students (NUS) to ballot all of its members on the action, and pursue a strategy unseen in the UK for 45 years - since a 5-week strike in 1971 defeated Thatcher during her period as education minister.
Ever since the cut to grants were announced in the budget, there have been predictions that the chancellor had delivered students with a key issue to mobilize around, and could provoke another wave in the student movement. These predictions seem to be coming true. When students start to return to campus over the next few weeks we will begin to see what the mood is like on the ground although every early indication is that students want to take on the government.
