Glance n.4 by Umberto Marengo picture by Matt Dinnery
15/12/2010
The first fortnight of December has been a tumultuous one for the British and the Italian
governments. In Britain students fighting against the raise in tuition fees occupied universities
and took it to the streets of London shaking the British public opinion and the stability of the
coalition government. In Italy over the last two weeks it fell on university students to enliven the
disheartened Italian opposition but this was only an aside to the main story: Berlusconi narrowly
winning the vote of confidence in the lower house thanks to a handful of last-minute “repentances”
from the opposition and to the tactical abstention of a rebel group loyal to his former deputy,
Gianfranco Fini.
In the UK the government passed legislation to cut public teaching grants by 80% and raise
university tuition fees up to £ 9,000 (€ 10.600) a year. Governments can consider themselves
lucky when students are their first opponents in time of austerity. The student protest looks fairly
harmless but this time tuition fees happen to be an incredibly contentious issued for the junior
coalition partner, the Lib-Dem. After having campaigned for a decade against Labour tuition fee
rises (from 0 to £ 3,600 a year) all Lib-Dems signed an election pledge to oppose any increase
in tuition fees and Nick Clegg himself was photographed proudly showing his own signature.
Devised as a public demonstration of “Lib-Dem readiness to govern”, the coalition government
is dramatically weakening the Lib-Dem especially within their own constituency (dissatisfied
Labours, educated young students and professionals). Although tuition fee rise were backed by
the House of Commons, 21 out of 57 Lib-Dem MPs rebelled against the government and 8 more
abstained leaving many uncertainties about Nick Clegg leadership and on the stability of the
coalition government in the months to come. The Lib-Dem recently lost more than 15 points in the
polls and discontent within the party is expected to grow as more public sector redundancies will
come next year.
The Italian political climate is far more tense. After six months of bickering among (former)
allies, Silvio Berlusconi managed to fend off the parliamentary rebellion lead by Giafranco
Fini, now speaker of the lower House. Thanks to a handful of last minute unlikely repentances,
Berlusconi mustered the House 314 to 311 (out of 630) Although Berlusconi does not have a stable
enough majority to govern for another three years he is again the key playmaker and he will be
deciding how and when to call a general election. Even more importantly, Berlusconi can continue
to present himself as the only and undefeated rightwing Italian leader. The vote in Parliament
sparked student protests in Rome, some of witch degenerated into clashes with the police and
violent rioting. The last financial review (legge finanziaria) cut public funding to universities by
a flat 20% (over € 1,3 bn) and the hardship scholarship budget has been reduced from € 246 to 13
million in two years. The government has been struggling to get the reform thorough the lower
house and the student movement has been galvanised by a concrete possibility of success but it is
likely that the government will now show its determination in the Senate.
But what about the policies?
Following a period of budget austerity, both Italy and the UK have dramatically cut public spending
in Higher Education. The Italian government policy is, to put it bluntly, to cut public funding
without a specific strategy and let universities to cope with it or to die out slowly. Mr. Tremonti,
Italian Minister of Economy and Finance, kindly invited protesters to “make a sandwich with La
Divina Commedia”.
The British rise in tuition fee is part of a decade long process. Tony Blair introduced tuition fees in
1998 setting the cap at about £ 1,000 a year (tripled to over £ 3,000 in 2004), a rather unpopular
move even at the time. In the British system, however, no students pays upfront for the cost of its
undergraduate education (first 3 years). All students receive a government loan which covers tuition
fees and, depending on social background, also living expenses. Under the new proposed system
the government will slash higher education subsidises and students will have to take loans to cover
up to 9,000 a year for the most prestigious universities. As under the previous scheme, graduates
will be asked to repay their debt only when they earn more than £ 21,000 a year, this in order to
encourage access from low income students and protect graduates who follow low-income careers.
In a time of political tensions is easy, especially for opposition parties, to be carried by the events.
Ed Milliband dubbed the university fee rise as “an act of vandalism” but the Brown Independent
Review which put forward the current proposal was convened by Labourite Lord Mandelson and
the new plan involves only a change in size, not in structure from Labour’s reform. The political
question which confronts both the Italian and the British left is whether graduates should be
asked to pay (although through subsided loans) for the full cost of their education. Not less but
also no more than that.
