The National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) or Student Left Network is a membership-based organisation of activist students and education workers campaigning against

tuition fees Tuition payments, usually known as tuition in American English and as tuition fees in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English, are fees charged by education institutions for instruction or other services. Besides public spen ...

, education cuts and

privatisation Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

.What is the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts?
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History

National student campaigns for free education in the UK have always existed; the first organised group was the Campaign for Free Education (CFE), founded in 1995 in opposition to proposals by

Labour Students Labour Students is a student organisation within the Labour Party of the United Kingdom. It is a network of affiliated college and university clubs, known as Labour Clubs, who campaign in their campuses and communities for Labour's values of e ...

for the

NUS NUS or Nus may refer to: * National University of Singapore * Nus, a town in the Aosta Valley of Italy * Neglected and Underutilized Species, or Neglected and Underutilized Crops * National Union of Students (Australia) * National Union of Students ...

to abandon its opposition to the abolition of student grants. CFE was disbanded in 2004 by NUS President

Kat Fletcher Kathryn "Kat" Jane Fletcher (born 20 December 1979) is a British Labour Party politician. In May 2016, she was sworn in as the Mayor of Islington, having served as a councillor of the borough's St George's Ward since 2013. She was previously p ...

, and took a year re-emerge as Education Not For Sale which was founded by left wing anti capitalist students. In 2009 ENS jointly organised (with

Socialist Students Socialist Students is a socialist organisation with branches in universities, further education colleges and sixth form colleges in the United Kingdom. Socialist Students was established in the late 1990s by members of the Socialist Party (SP) wh ...

and

Socialist Workers' Student Society The Socialist Worker Student Society (SWSS, pronounced ''swizz'') is the student section of the Socialist Workers Party in Britain. In the 1950s and 60s, student members of the SWP's forerunners were active in the National Association of Labour ...

) the first student demonstration for free education in 5 years but with low turnout and a proposal in 2010 by UCL Free Education Society to establish NCAFC, ENS was folded into a newly established the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC). The organisation was founded at a convention at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

in February 2010 on a platform of campaigning for "free, fair and funded public education for all", paid for through the taxation of the rich and big business. NCAFC also has semi-autonomous campaigns in Scotland and Wales. The organisation played a role in the

2010 UK student protests The 2010 United Kingdom student protests were a series of demonstrations in November and December 2010 that took place in several areas of the country, with the focal point of protests being in central London. Largely student-led, the protests w ...

, calling several days of action following the National Union of Students organised demonstration on 10 November.Politics as usual has failed. Students must take direct action

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

, 22 November 2010. It was estimated that up to 130,000 students took part in the 24 November 2010 day of action across the UK.Student protests: school's out across the UK as children take to the streets

, 24 November 2010. The organisation also undertakes research into education funding.Vice Chancellor high pay report - anticuts.com
16 April 2012
-

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

, 19 April 2012Top universities 'doubled pay for senior staff'
-

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...

, 20 April 2012

2010 UK student protests

In 2011 NCAFC organised a march through central

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, supported by the National Union of Students and the

University and College Union The University and College Union (UCU) is a British trade union in further and higher education representing over 120,000 academics and support staff. UCU is a vertical union representing casualised researchers and teaching staff, "permanent" ...

, in opposition to the government's Higher Education White Paper. As many as 15,000 students took part, with the

Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...

pre-authorising the use of plastic bullets in the light of the violence after the previous year's protest against student fees.

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

reporter Mike Sergeant described the policing on the day as "quite extraordinary... It's the most tightly controlled march through London that I have ever seen".Thousands march in student protest over university fees

, 9 November 2011. The government later withdrew the HE Bill. In 2014, NCAFC organised another major national demonstration for free education, this time in collaboration with the

Student Assembly Against Austerity A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution. In the United Kingdom and most commonwealth countries, a "student" attends a secondary school or higher (e.g., college or university); those in primary or elementary ...

and the Young Greens. Organisers claimed that the demonstration saw 10,000 students march and that the event was the largest mobilisation of students in Britain since 2010. Following the demonstration, NCAFC organised two separate nationwide days of action for free education, on 3 December 2014 and 31 January 2015. The first gained wide publicity after accusations of police violence at a student occupation at the University of Warwick and the second saw students marching in Brighton, Sheffield and Norwich among other cities. These marches were followed by a demonstration co-ordinated by NCAFC at the Labour Party Conference in Birmingham in protest at the party's stance on Higher Education funding. Despite significant gains for left wing candidates at the 2015 National Union of Students conference, candidates standing on the National Campaign Against Fees Cuts slate saw limited success. NCAFC's candidates for President, Beth Redmond, and Vice President Higher Education, Hattie Craig, widely regarded as presenting a 'hard left' face inside NUS in comparison to many of the other left-wing candidates, were not elected into full-time roles. However, NCAFC's candidate for Vice President (Welfare), Shelly Asquith, was elected, and Beth Redmond and Hannah Webb were elected to the NUS Block of 15, meaning the NCAFC have maintained a presence on the NUS National Executive Council as well as maintaining a strong presence in student unions and in autonomous areas of NUS. In November 2015 the NCAFC organised another national student demonstration in London under the slogan: "No Borders, No Barriers, No Business". The demonstration aimed to connect the fight against cuts to maintenance grants affecting the million poorest students and issues of migration and the refugee crisis. Organisers claimed 10,000 students from across the country joined the protest. The demonstration was marked by a clash between police and protesters outside the

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills , type = Department , logo = Department for Business, Innovation and Skills logo.svg , logo_width = 200px , logo_caption = , picture = File:Лондан. 2014. Жнівень 26.JPG , seal = , se ...

when protesters attempted to storm the building. This was followed by what organisers claimed was a use of the controversial

kettling Kettling (also known as containment or corralling) is a police tactic for controlling large crowds during demonstrations or protests. It involves the formation of large cordons of police officers who then move to contain a crowd within a li ...

containment tactic on Victoria Street, before thousands of students broke police lines and began an unscheduled demonstration through the Victoria area that continued into the evening. 12 demonstrators were arrested over the course of the day.

Rebrand

In 2018, the organisation relaunched itself as SLN , with a "Student Activist Weekender" in September and a formal rebrand in October. Campaigners spoke about the need to "unite students to campaign collectively against our universities and against the government". SLN held its inaugural National Conference at the

University of Sheffield , mottoeng = To discover the causes of things , established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions: – Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield , type = Pu ...

in February 2019. It voted to break from the dominant 'soft left' Liberation Left faction in NUS due to its position on NUS reforms and on

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or ...

, and instead campaigned for two left-wing candidates, and actively stood candidates against incumbent officers Zamzam Ibrahim and Eva Crossan-Jory.

Affiliated organisations

Disabled People Against Cuts Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) is an organisation based in the United Kingdom for disabled people and allies to campaign against the impact of government spending cuts on the lives of disabled people. Formed on 3 October 2010 DPAC promotes ...

Edinburgh University Students' Association Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of ...

University of Birmingham Guild of Students The University of Birmingham Guild of Students (previously Birmingham University Guild of Students; BUGS) is the officially recognised body that represents around 37,000 students at the University of Birmingham. The Guild functions as a students' ...

Young Greens of England and Wales The Young Greens of England and Wales (YGEW) is the official youth branch of the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW). All members of the GPEW who are under 30 years old and/or full or part-time students are members of the Young Greens and a ...

References

External links

NCAFC website

NCAFC Facebook page

NCAFC articles
on

HuffPost ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...

{{Riots in England Higher education in the United Kingdom National Union of Students (United Kingdom) Protest marches Student protests in London London anti-cuts UK Student Protests, 2010 UK Student Protests, 2010 Political riots Riots in London Student protests in the United Kingdom UK student Education advocacy groups National Union of Students (United Kingdom) factions