Education: right or privilege?

Dina Fanara 

Assistant News Editor

“Education is our right, we will not give up the fight!”

Feb. 1 was known as the Day of Action for university students across Canada, as many marched through their respective campuses to take a stand against rising tuition fees. McMaster students gathered to chant in Mills Plaza from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

According to the Vancouver Sun, 24 campuses in British Columbia alone were to partake in the rally.

At the McMaster campus, a little over 50 students arrived within the first ten minutes of the event. The CHCH news crew was also present at the event, interviewing students and taking video footage of the rally as it began.

Music was blasting, thanks to a DJ present outside the Student Centre. People were gathering, and signs and snacks were shared. Students showed immense enthusiasm to be a part of such a movement. Though McMaster Security and Hamilton Police were present, no issues of conflict arose.

McMaster student Mel Napeloni said, “we need to have more activism on campus,” adding that it was great to see something that all students can relate to.

While the student group Occupy McMaster played a role in organizing the event, many students from all areas of the University were present, including members of the SRA (Student Representative Assembly), presidential candidates, graduate students and representatives of CUPE Union Local 3906, which represents teaching assistants, sessional professors and postdoctoral fellows on campus.

In a speech to the students in attendence, Simon Granat, SRA representative for the Faculty of Social Sciences, stated that, “we’re taking a stand to say students care about other students.”

Similarly, SRA Health Sciences representative Riaz Sayani-Mulji stated that, “we are the student movement, we can make a difference.” He explained that this is a critical time for students to make their voices heard, because the way the government grant system currently runs excludes two in three university students.

“Education is a human right,” continued Sayani-Mulji, and it’s something that many potential students have difficulty accessing because of cost limitations. According to Rick Gunderman, the candidate representing the Communist Party in the previous provincial election, the solution would be to “cut tuition altogether… attack from all angles that they are attacking us from.”

The Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) distributed leaflets to be handed out to students across Canada, outlining their three main goals: to drop student debt, reduce tuition fees and increase education funding.

The leaflet employs the awe-factor to support the movement, outlining that students are left with an average debt of  approximately $37,000 upon graduation, and “tuition fees are growing faster than public transit, rent, food and other costs faced by students.”
After gathering in the Mills Plaza, students marched in unison, cheering, “What do we want? Dropped fees! When do we want it? Now!”

The march route included locations such as the Burke Science Building, the John Hodgins Engineering Building, University Avenue, the Arts Quad and the University Hall archway, concluding in Mills Plaza.

An article from Macleans entitled, “Protests underway from coast to coast,” underlines the finding that over the past twenty years, the proportion of operating costs of universities covered by public funding has dropped dramatically from 81 per cent to a mere 57 per cent.