UCU: Vision for higher education

Motion

Motion text: Conference deplores the creeping erosion of the ideals of education, free thought and autonomy that underpin higher education. UCU will continue to assert the ideals that are a central component of our professional identity and rights as workers.
Further conference notes the DIUS 'debate' on the future of higher education in England. Conference is concerned about the lack of staff involvement in the process and the endorsement of an instrumentalist, business-dominated 'framework for higher education'.
Conference calls on the HEC:
to campaign for 'real universities' based on the principles of academic freedom, collegiality and institutional autonomy, independent scholarship and research, and equality and internationalism
to develop policy papers based on those principles which will be to frame UCU responses to future government reviews
to work with ROCC to produce campaigning materials for different audiences
to feed into the development of UCU's alternative vision for post-school education
to promote and support the declaration of the 20th May as an annual International Academic Freedom Day.