Every time OUCHI Hirokazu pointed
out various statistics, voices of surprise and sighs arose from the audience in
the Labornet TV studio on March 25.
Ouchi said that the tuitions on state-run universities
rose from 12,000 yen in the 1970s to about 700,000 yen today. As the number of
students borrowing loans increased from about 20 percent to over 50 percent, the
money a student spends in a day reduced from 2,300 yen to 930 yen. So they turn
to sweetshop-type jobs and never have enough time to do any social activities. We
must also note that they owe about 4 to 5 million yen on student loans at about 3-percent interest rate as soon as they
graduate from universities.
The cut on education budget started from the NAKASONE administration and was supported by prime ministers,
HASHIMOTO Ryutaro and KOIZUMI Junichiro. However, the small government (= neoliberalism)
they promoted surely is destroying young people. The people in the studio became
more furious as they learned the reality of student loans for the first time
and came to realize there had to be something done to improve the situations
young people face. (M)
「えぇ！ おぉ！はぁ！」、大内裕和さんが具体的数字を上げるたびに、スタジオに驚きと嘆息の声が上がった。3月25日のレイバーネッ トTVは、「まるでアリ地獄？ 奨学金問題を考える」を特集した。大内さんによれば、1970年代国立大 学の授業料は1万2千
円だったが現在は約70万円。奨学金を借りる学生は2割くら いだったが、現在は5割 をこえる。1990年の学生一人一日に使える金が2300円だったのが、現在は930円。 だからブラックバイトに走るし、社会活動
をする余裕もない。そして何より問題なのは、奨学金に約3％の利子が付き、社会に出たとたんに400～500万円の借金を背負うことだ。教育予算の削減は 中曽根政権からはじまり、橋本、小泉が推進してきたが、その「小さな政府＝新自由主義路線」が、確実に若者を破滅的状況に追いこんでいる。「ひどすぎる」
「何とかしなくては」、初めて知った事実にスタジオの怒りも沸騰した。（M）
No comments:
Post a Comment