The New Power University: The social purpose of higher education in the 21st century

Chapter 3

New power learning and world-ready students

New power learning will graduate world-ready students with increased participation in higher education globally

In the previous chapter, I briefly told the story of how universities were exploiting low-paid cleaners. This is a story of power that Matthew Bolton, the director of Citizens UK, elaborates on in his book, How to Resist. Citizens UK is a charity that helps deliver social change through community organising. One of Bolton’s first campaigns was on the living wage. In his book, he talks about how he helped persuade a UK university to take back cleaning staff into their direct employment, rather than outsource these services to a third party, and to pay them a living wage. This was ...