The higher education sector is, by all accounts, a sinking ship. Lack of government support and a decrease in the number of international students have created a serious funding crisis. Some 80% of institutions could soon be at risk of deficit. Many have already announced redundancies, course closures, are scaling down catering provisions, changing work patterns or trying to outsource services. All the while we face the now-standard real terms pay cuts to our wages.

The writing has been on the wall for a long time now and the situation is only set to get worse. As usual, it’s students and workers who will be forced to pay for the bosses' crisis.

LEARNING THE LESSONS OF PAST DEFEATS

Over the last 15 years we have seen protracted struggles in the sector. Whether it's the student protests and occupations which began in 2010 in opposition to the trebling of tuition fees, or the academic strikes against the pension reform of 2018, attacks on our pay and conditions have not gone unchallenged.

However, it's not been enough to shift the balance of class forces in our favour. Solidarity between students, academic and non-academic staff has been limited in scope. Past defeats should teach us that as long as we remain divided across sectors and unions, we fight losing battles on terms dictated by the bosses.

And it is never easy to fight in the context of the managed decline of an industry. So we don't end up like the miners in 1984, we need to overcome our isolation through the self-organisation of the struggle:

• Mass assemblies, open to all students and workers, to build a real movement and extend it beyond the university gates.
• Strike committees, representing all those involved in the struggle (whether union members or not), to coordinate the fight.

NOT JUST A CRISIS OF HIGHER EDUCATION

What's happening in higher education is not an isolated phenomenon. We are living the consequences of 50 years of a structural crisis of capitalism. In its never-ending search for profits, the system is now meeting insurmountable obstacles. Competition between companies and states is becoming more and more cut-throat. Under these circumstances, it's naive to expect any education reforms in the interests of students and workers. Politicians would rather invest in war! This is why the higher education crisis is not a uniquely British problem but has hit several countries.

Yes, education has to be freed from the profit motive. But this is not possible within the current system so we have to look beyond the capitalist horizon. Our movement needs to pose wider social questions and those of us who recognise that another world — without classes and social inequality, without states and wars, without nations and frontiers — is still possible, need to get organised in the here and now.

STUDENTS AND WORKERS, UNITE AND FIGHT!

DIFFERENT SECTORS, SAME STRUGGLE!

NO WAR BUT THE CLASS WAR!