Author:
Dan
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Date Posted: 20:59:00 01/13/04 Tue
I just wanted someone somewhere to get to read this rant i wrote recently. I can't risk the lawsuit that would ensue if anyone read it in the paper!
Shifting the blame – by Daniel Wainwright
WHO’s responsibility is it anyway in the end? You may well ask for what, but the answer I would give is “for anything”. Let’s look at the government for a start. Always much criticised and everyone has a point of view on it.
The government seems to have a kind of “user pays” scheme in place with virtually everything. If we want to go to university, we have to pay for it. If we want to see a dentist on the NHS, we pay for it. If we want any medical treatment without having to wait an almost dangerously long time, we pay for it. If we get caught speeding, we pay for the Police officer to write the ticket via a fine. And in a new consultation paper it looks like they want us to pay a surcharge for criminal injuries if we get caught speeding, even if there was no victim as such, putting reckless drivers in the same light as those who commit an assault. Of course I’m by no means suggesting that speeding isn’t wrong. Of course it is, and a fine is a very worthy deterrent, but all this is just pure revenue generation. The government is shifting its fund-raising responsibility from itself to the general public, and can claim that it hasn’t actually raised taxes by too much.
This would all be understandable if we could actually see some real benefit in all of this. But look what we get instead of better hospitals: a Millennium Dome, a wobbly bridge in London, a needless war and a remaining military presence that is now so depleted and overstretched that it would have trouble protecting an old folks’ home from some unruly teenagers if it were called to do so.
But of course, its’ all your fault for wanting to educate yourself in the first place that you and your parents pay so much for university. It’s all your fault for caring too much for your teeth that you went to see a dentist and had to pay a tenner just to get him/her to take a look (sounds like calling out a plumber!). And how dare you assume that just because you pay your taxes and fares that you deserve a proper rail network and public transport system!
And its’ not just the government that seeks to look elsewhere for its scapegoats. Look at this very university. Problem after glitch after problem has happened with that bloody building project on the south end, which recently saw 74 postgrads evacuated at a time of year when many have exams and coursework deadlines, because defective wiring meant that there was a possibility the whole building could have gone up in flames.
When SCAN interviewed the Estates department last term we were told that the welfare of the students was the university’s concern, while the buildings themselves were the concern of Jarvis. Now surely there’s an overlap here? Even though the university has signed up for a 38-year deal with Jarvis, because they probably got a good deal, the university still owns the freehold on the land and also must surely be able to go and inspect the quality of the work being undertaken?
But of course that would implicate the university when the turd hits the fan like it did last week. It’s easier for the university to follow the way of the government that has cut its Higher Education funding to such an extent that it must employ sharks like Jarvis to provide rooms for all those new students it must attract in order to generate enough revenue to keep afloat. And of course the university can wash its hands of the problems that go with using a commercially active company to build and maintain those rooms. It’s Jarvis who are liable for compensating the students whose lives they are making a misery by building such shoddy accommodation with inferior amenities (kettles that cost £3, vacuum cleaners made useless after being used to clear builder’s rubble). And it’s the students themselves who have to do something about getting compensation for all this, with only LUSU providing the long-suffering members of the GSA with any real assistance.
And it’s going to get worse next year. When Cartmel and Lonsdale move this year it won’t be a group of experienced, eloquent post-graduate students that show up there to form an orderly line, elect spokespersons on the spot and be told their rooms aren’t ready for the beginning of term. It’ll be 18 year olds, each one bringing a couple of very worried parents who know that their precious son or daughter is going to be in a strange place for the first time, and desperate to make sure that they are well established. To that end they’ll have probably loaded up the car with pots, pans and all sorts of other things that they’ll have to leave packed up while they abandon their loved one in temporary accommodation. And when those outraged parents complain to the university, I’ll wager they get told to take it up with a Jarvis representative. I doubt very much the university will even send one of their own representatives to say that. They’ll leave it LUSU and the JCRs, who will be trying their damnedest to get those freshers settled and ready to embark on what is supposed to be the beginning of their best time of their lives. But that won’t matter, as long as they pay their fees and rent on time.
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