On Tuesday afternoon hundreds of students demonstrated about the slipping standards in teaching and cut backs at Manchester University. The protest, which took over roads, holding up traffic in the Oxford Road area around the campus as angry and frustrated students marched with drumbeats, chants and a sound-system strapped on to the back of a bicycle, was organised by the grass-roots group Reclaim the Uni. The group was set up in February 2008 to express a growing dissatisfaction with the move towards a business model at universities and the effect this has had in reducing teaching hours, increasing staff cuts and the lack of resources and access to facilities available to students.
Earlier this year, Student Direct, following a challenge from Vice-Chancellor Alan Gilbert, investigated the truth behind the plummeting numbers of teaching hours and discovered that Politics students spend an average of just 86 hours per year in lectures and tutorials, compared to twenty years ago, when university education was free and politics students benefited from 200 hours of teaching a year.
The forced retirement of the well-known feminist scholar Sheila Rowbotham also caused an outrage amongst the students who are demanding an end to staff cut-backs. What’s more, there are complaints that the university libraries don?t have enough books for the expanding student population that need them and that the Arthur Lewis building which cost the debt-ridden university
It has since emerged what was happening with the “small minority engaging with scuffles with the police”.
The police deliberately set off the fire alarm.
The police began moving towards the back door, which has a big red sign saying ‘ALARMED’ on it. When asked where they were going, the police replied, “To get some fresh air.” They were then politely asked to leave by the front entrance, since the back doors were alarmed. The policemen replied, “Yeah, I know” and continued to walk toward the alarmed door.
A handful of people attempted to stop them. This scenario could not be communicated back to the rest of the meeting, or the facilitators, due to all the commotion, with policeman grabbing people’s necks, and causing a ruckus.
Just as a message did get to the facilitators, which was about to be relayed to the rest of the meeting, the police got through and opened the fire exit door, setting off the alarm and disrupting the meeting. But not for long!