“Students united shall never be defeated.”

Warwick has an alliance with Monash University in Australia. As of this year, there are numerous opportunities to go to Australia – sports, research, study abroad, all sorts. But things ‘down under’ aren’t going well. Just like in Britain, the Higher Education sector is undergoing massive cuts, with our partner institution suffering a whopping $48 million (£32 million). As a result, modules have been cut and class sizes have increased. Teaching staff have been made casuals, meaning they don’t know whether they’ll still be teaching tomorrow, next term or next year. The effects on educational quality are dramatic, to say the least.

All of this situation is, of course, clouded in a greater perversity. While students and staff bear the brunt of sacrifice, Monash’s administration continues to spend lavishly on what it wants. It pays its Vice-Chancellor over $1 million, about 3 times higher than relatively Thrifty Nigel. Likewise, Monash is spending an obscene $90 million (£60 million) on ‘campus redevelopments’.

A University should be more than a physical place, but a space for learning and community. By caring more about the aesthetics of its campuses than with delivering quality education, Monash is behaving like a business rather than a University, making the packaging beautiful without caring for the functionality of the good inside.

Of course, a business model was just the excuse for Monash to exclude both students and staff from their University Council. It is utterly abhorrent that students and staff were likened to customers and employees by top-level Monash officials. Since their exclusion, major decisions such as the sale of Monash’s only non-metropolitan campus, Gippsland, have been approved.

At Monash, Students are fighting back. They’ve refused funding offered to them on the condition that they wouldn’t criticise University decisions. On May 1st, they are organising a General Meeting where they hope to mobilise the student community to defend their rights and education.

Here at Warwick, we cannot be indifferent. We too have to send a message to Australia – that we are standing with students at Monash. But in doing so, we will be sending a message to University big-dogs – that they do not even try to do the same here. That Warwick students are not consumers, and deserve representation in the governing bodies of our University. That we will not be silenced with money. That Warwick needs to remain committed to providing quality education.