Beyond public and private: a model for co-operative higher education

We are witnessing an “assault†on universities (Bailey and Freedman, 2011) and the future of higher education and its institutions is being “gambled.†(McGettigan, 2013) For years now, we have been warned that our universities are in “ruins†(Readings, 1997). We campaign for the “public university†(Holmwood, 2011) but in the knowledge that we work for private corporations where the means of knowledge production is being consolidated under the control of an executive. We want the cops off our campus but lack a form of institutional governance that gives teachers and students a right to the university. (Bhandar, 2013)There is an alternative. Outside the university, there is an institutional form of co-operative association that attempts to address issues of ownership and control over the means of production through a radical form of democracy among those involved. Co-operatives are constituted on the values of autonomy, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity. In many cases the assets of the co-operative are held under ‘common ownership’, a social form of property that goes beyond the distinction between private and public.This research aims to bring together scholars, students, and expert members of the co-operative movement to design a viable model for co-operative higher education.