Priya Gopal: 'The Neoliberal University'

Dr. Priya Gopal (University of Cambridge) speaking at the Convention for Higher Education
University of Brighton

Friday 24 & Saturday 25 May 2013

Organised by the Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics (CAPPE), University of Brighton, and co-sponsored by the Campaign for Public Universities, the Council for the Defence of British Universities, and the UCU at the University of Brighton, this two-day conference on Higher Education investigated the current changes that British Higher Education (in England and Wales) is undergoing.

The Convention was designed to enable colleagues from the full range of university disciplines to address how to preserve a properly described 'higher education' from the effects of current proposals, and from the redefinition of universities and of higher learning. As a complement to the Council for the Defence of British Universities and the Campaign for Public Universities, it considered a draft of a Charter for Higher Education that the organisers hope will be debated and refined in most or all institutions of higher learning throughout the UK, and which could then form the core of values around which colleagues could cohere, whether as members of Councils and Academic Boards, Faculty or School Boards, as members of their Course Committees, or as union members.

The Convention was occasioned by the 25th anniversary of the Humanities Programme at the University of Brighton. Born in in adversity in 1988 -- in the midst of an earlier assault on the Humanities -- it has survived and thrived by resisting both governmental pressure and temporary fashions in education and pedagogy. It is an interdisciplinary, non-modular range of degree courses based on small-group teaching, and research-focused student development.

Keynote speakers:

Priya Gopal, John Holmwood, Martin McQuillan, Gill Scott, Will Hutton,
 Martin Hall, Luke Martell,
 Peter Scott, Tom Hickey, Caroline Lucas (MP), Thomas Docherty, Des Freedman, Terry Brotherstone, Harriet Bradley, Mark Erickson.

[FridaRunghen]

What this lady is saying is true though. Human's knowledge is in jeopardy when "students are put in the heart of the system." 

[rhizomorphous]

thanks for sharing this...great lecture!!

[ВладимирВладимировичПетров-нз]

Ms. Gopal, you and your compatriots, have long been brought to the international court. In India you currently have caste slavery. You call yourself the highest caste, study, occupy leadership positions. Manage business and politics, while at the same time you have millions of people who you call the lowest caste. You do not allow them to study or occupy leadership positions. And this is only on the basis of katom. You are one of the representatives of the slave caste. When will you kneel before your compatriots ???

[hannahjayapriya]

WHat a beautiful, beautiful speech is this! She's prised open the neoliberal conspiracy for us...and esp, for me who's an avid consumer of moocs and all that which comes under the creative commons! But, what does one do when one's complicit in Market Fundamentalism?