Students demand

STUDENTS IN almost every college in the State will vote today on possible strike action this Thursday as part of the USI's day of action on education related issues. With a general election set for next autumn, USI will be hoping to send a message not only to the Department of Education and local college authorities, but also to politicians at constituency level.

"The only way to generate change in an election year is to make education a political priority," USI deputy president Noeleen Hartigan says.

The use of action in individual colleges to achieve both national and local demands represents a gradual localisation of USI policy, from 1994's single protest in Dublin through to last year's protests in four regional centres and now on to individual protests by nearly every USI affiliated college in the State.

"Direct action is for students who cannot afford the time to become involved with student action on the education system," Hartigan says. "Also, local issues remain to the fore while we continue to be a national organisation campaigning for national issues.

Thus, UCG's discontent with the college may focus in part on the lack of progress with the student bar, while Waterford RTC students will put pressure on the college to speed up the construction of a new library. Others will campaign for increases in a range of ESF and higher education grants.

"There is still an image out there that students are fairly well to do, which is pretty far from the reality," John McGrath, president of Waterford RTC students union, says. "A large percentage of people living in the city and attending college are dependent on grants.

He believes well organised unions will get a good response using the local strategy, but the results may be mixed. UCD students' union, for example, appears unlikely to participate actively in this week's protests. The DIT, by contrast, is likely to take its students to the Dail on Thursday.

The USI campaign has also led to more than 10,000 students registering to vote, whether in their own constituencies or in their college constituencies the union claims As part of its follow up campaign, USI is organising a national education debate in January at which the Minister for Education and the spokespersons from the other parties will be invited to explain their policies.

This Friday local politicians will be invited to attend third level colleges in their area and debate students' demands.

The British National Union of Students has already voted overwhelmingly in favour of similar action. It represents something of a turnaround for the NUS, which previously appeared to favour lobbying instead of direct action.

Its bluff may have been called when the Association of University Teachers announced that it would be balloting its members on industrial action for November 19th, forcing the Labour dominated NUS to make a similar move.

As part of the USI campaign, all the major political parties were asked to respond to the union's demands. The November 8th deadline passed without any response from the Government, though two other parties did respond (see panel below).

With almost 100,000 third level students in this country, not counting PLC students, the third level sector represents a considerable vote to be courted. But the failure of the biggest political parties to respond on time raises questions about how seriously they take a threatened ballot box strategy by the national union. USI may yet find its bluff being called.