Collective

Education Collective

#Who are we?

Education Officer: Alisa Hamilton

The Education Action group (EGA) is a collective of passionate students who care about your education and want you to get the best one possible at this university. In the past the EAG have run campaigns about improving trimesters, classes being more accessible, such as having slides online, more appropriate times for classes and angling for lecture recordings. We work with a belief that universities primarily need to be places of learning and education, rather than a business that is out to make money. Education doesn’t deserve a price tag.

Over the past several years we have seen an ongoing attack on the quality of the higher education sector. We have engaged in nation-wide campaigns with the national union of students (NUS), such as attempting to lobby the government to scrap indexation on hecs, increased FASF in the hands of students and paid placements for students who are often forced to do countless hours of unpaid labour to finish their degrees

Universities have been increasingly finding new ways to cut corners and increase profits from casualising their workforce, to the creation of trimesters with little to no consultation of students or staff.

#What do we do?

As the Education Action Group, we also work closely with the NTEU - the teacher’s union, in order to get results that are positive for professors as well as students. A university that looks after its staff in turn improves the teaching quality of our university and thus your education.

The UTS Education Action Group also works closely with NUS- the National Union of Students, on a variety of campaigns, but in particular the National Day of Action (NDA), where students across the country gather to show the Australian Government and society that students care about their education and are willing to fight for it.

#How to get involved?

The Education Action Group gives you, the student, an opportunity to make change within the university and be consulted on how your degree is being changed or tailored. One issue which faces many university students in the shift from semesters to trimesters, is the lack of core subjects in the summer session. Another issue is the lack of consideration for regional students in timetable scheduling of classes. If these are issues you feel passionately about please get in contact by email education@utsstudentsassociation.org, and attend some of our meetings! There will be a NDA, and there will be advertising throughout the university, so make sure to attend that too, and show the university management and the government that your quality education matters to you.