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Ontario Government's Anti-Social
Offensive Dishonest Attack on Right
to Education
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The Ontario government has issued a decree targeting post-secondary students, faculty and staff and their collective defence organizations. The January 17 decree contains three parts:
1) a tuition reduction of 10 per cent across the board at institutions;
2) changes to Ontario's student financial assistance program placing a greater burden to cover education on students and their families; and
3) a requirement that post-secondary administrations make membership voluntary in student unions, which are the collective defence organizations of the student body.
Attack on Student Organizing
The government seeks
to
hide and force through without
response from the working people the liquidation of the
collective defence organizations of the students. The government
sees this as necessary to impose further anti-social changes in
education. It strives to undermine the resistance of the youth
and students to the government's attacks on their rights. It
wants a legal means to brand as criminals and outlaws those youth
and students who organize to resist the overall anti-social,
anti-worker, pro-war direction of governments at both the
provincial and federal levels as they integrate Canada and
Ontario even further into the U.S. war machine.
The Ford government announced that starting next year every institution will be required to allow students to opt out of "all non-essential non-tuition fees," which is an open assault on student organizing and their right to resist. A news release from Merrilee Fullerton, Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities states, "[every student in Ontario will be] empowered to choose which student fees they want to pay and how that money will be allocated. Fees for essential campus health and safety initiatives will continue to be mandatory.
"Student fees in Ontario can range as high as $2,000 per year and, too often, force students to pay for services they do not use and organizations they do not support. We will ensure students have transparency and freedom of choice regarding the campus services and organizations which get access to their money."
Revealing that these
measures are specifically aimed at
targeting the collective organization of the student movement,
the opt-out provision will not apply to "fees used to fund major,
campus-wide services and facilities or fees which contribute to
the health and safety of students [which] are deemed mandatory,
and will remain a part of the fee structure. Essential campus
initiatives include: walksafe programs, health and counselling,
athletics and recreation and academic support."[1]
The government is hiding its true intentions
behind the
recognition that such programs and infrastructure are important.
By
targeting the collective organization of the student movement, it
is
targeting their collective consciousness. Even the "services" the
government says can be kept where fought for by the students
through
their organizations. The aim is to eliminate students' ability to
make
their own decisions on matters of concern on campus by making
membership voluntary in the independent students' unions and
other
on-campus groups, those which are not under the control of the
administration of the university, college or the government. The
government will give students the "freedom of choice" to opt out
of
these "non-essential" membership fees knowing full well that a
majority
of students are strapped for money. By so doing, the government
claim
to uphold "individual choice" is based on the false premise that
collective rights negate individual rights. This, in turn,
supposes
that there is no such thing as a society which has general
interests
with which both individual and collective interests must be
harmonized
while individual and collective interests must also be
harmonized. Far
from giving society an aim consistent with the needs of its
members and
the times, individuals are turned into random persons with
individual
likes and dislikes which the monopolies will satisfy. It is a
profoundly anti-social outlook with measures which are
destructive and
have anti-social consequences.
Tuition Reduction Without Offsetting Increased Government Funding
The government says
tuition
fees are to be reduced by 10
per
cent. The reduction will affect the budgets of universities and
colleges as the funds are not being replaced with government
funding. This will lead the educational institutions to pursue
their own restructuring to make up for the loss of those funds.
The reduction will undoubtedly be used to justify attacking the
rights of campus faculty and staff as has happened in the
past.
Another result will be to lead these institutions to seek even greater funding from private monopolies in return for providing research and training for their future employees. Greater private funding outside any public regulations to do so in return for educated youth is always accompanied with greater monopoly influence on the curricula and other features of education.
Students will pay less tuition in the short term; however other measures being put in place make this an exercise of giving with one hand while taking even more away with the other. The Ford government is deliberately attempting to hide its plans and actions on this front.
Changes to Student Loans
The government is
imposing
changes to the student loan
program to make it more difficult for students to obtain loans to
finance their education while at the same time replacing existing
grants with loans. The measures include a reduction in
non-repayable grants and their replacement with loans. The
government will do this by reducing the family income thresholds
associated with eligibility for the Ontario Student Grant. The
government also introduced the charging of interest on student
loans during the six-month grace period after students graduate
before they are required to start paying back their
loan.[2]
These measures are presented as shifting loans to "the most needy." This is an insidious attempt to divide the youth between "the most needy" and the allegedly "less needy" so as to negate the right of all youth to an education that the society is duty-bound to provide. An aspect of the neo-liberal anti-social offensive is to eliminate universality in social programs under the hoax of directing available funds to those most in need. This attacks the modern definition that the economy of industrial mass production is capable of providing the rights and well-being of all with a guarantee and that the state is duty-bound to do so.
With these measures of the Ford government, students and their families will not only end up paying more for their education, they will also be under greater pressure to apply for public loans and, when not available, to take out private loans with higher interest rates. Both the public and private loans hand over greater amounts of students' and their families' funds to the financial oligarchy further entrenching its wealth and power.
Notes
1. On many campuses students have voted in referendums over the years to finance campus facilities, especially for athletics and recreation, as governments refused to invest in the conditions students require for their education. These measures let governments off the hook for properly funding education and allowed them to shift available public funds into pay-the-rich schemes for the global monopolies. In addition, students' unions have established programs for students, funded through ancillary fees approved through referendums, such as health and dental plans and others. These also make up for the refusal of successive governments to provide the youth with the conditions they require to live healthy lives. This letting government off the hook through ancillary fees paid regardless of the capacity of individual students to pay will be permitted to continue.
2. For the 2019-20 school year, a government news release indicates that the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) will:
- Continue to provide grants to students with the greatest financial need;
- Ensure that students who receive OSAP are those who have shown they have financial need and eliminate the non-needs-based portion of the Ontario Student Grant;
- Increase the share of funds going to low income families from 69 to 72 per cent;
- Ensure 82 per cent of grants will go to students with a family income of less than $50,000, up from 76 per cent under the previous government;
- Reduce the family income thresholds associated with eligibility for the Ontario Student Grant, provide some provincial loans to low-income students, and increase the per-term cap for the Ontario Student Loan;
- Base the calculation for student financial assistance on a contribution from students that reflects the recent increase to minimum wage and increase and restore parental contribution rates back to 2017-18 amounts;
- Make the computer allowance reflect a one-time purchase, rather than an expense eligible for each year of study;
- Change the definition of independent student for Ontario aid to a student who has been out of school for six years, up from four years, with parental income factored into the OSAP needs assessment for students up to six years out of high school, to address concerns outlined in the recent Auditor General's report;
- Change the grant-to-loan ratio to a minimum of 50 per cent loan from Ontario for students in second-entry programs (e.g. post-graduate college certificates, graduate degrees, law, etc.) at publicly-assisted Ontario institutions and for students attending institutions outside of Ontario;
- Maintain the current $25,000 annual income threshold for the Repayment Assistance Plan, ensuring that students can get on their feet after school before they need to start repaying their loan;
- Align Ontario's repayment terms with that of the federal government by charging interest during the six-month grace period, to reduce complexity for students.
This article was published in
Volume 49 Number 2 - January 26, 2019
Article Link:
Ontario Government's Anti-Social
Offensive: Dishonest Attack on Right
to Education
and Freedom of
Speech
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca