«Aqui não se fala de mais nada a não ser daquilo que estamos aqui a tratar [a falta de financiamento do Estado para as Universidades públicas???]»

Estudantes portugueses são os que mais pagam

A maior factura para frequentar as universidades é paga pelas famílias.

As famílias portuguesas pagam mais pelo ensino superior que o Estado. Esta é uma das principais conclusões que Luísa Cerdeira, administradora da Universidade de Lisboa, retira da análise que fez ao estado actual do financiamento no ensino superior em Portugal e na Europa. A tese de doutoramento desta economista revela como este dado pode funcionar como um factor desmobilizador na aposta numa formação mais elevada. "Em Portugal, o investimento na educação representa 11% do PIB ‘per capita'. Em toda a Europa, só o Reino Unido tem uma percentagem maior", salienta Luísa Cerdeira. "E quando comparamos os apoios públicos, aí vemos como estamos verdadeiramente mal". E como se reflecte esta situação nos números? O custo médio do ensino superior na economia de um estudante é 9.461 euros, que se dividem em 30% para despesas de educação e 70% para despesas de vida. Os dados revelam também que, entre 1994/95 e 2004/05 houve um aumento nominal de 37% dos custos dos estudantes do universitário público e 31% dos custos do universitário privado. O valor das propinas nas universidades públicas teve um acréscimo de 452%.

10 years of Bologna process: Belgrade students organized performance "The pric€ of knowledge"

In Serbia, the Bologna process came with an enormous rise of tuition fees from year to year, chaos in the system and impoverishment of the curriculum.

For the tenth anniversary of Bologna declaration, the students of Belgrade universities organized a performance called "What is the price of knowledge?" in the main walking street in Belgrade. While we were sitting on the street and studying, the passers-by were invited to put a price on particular types of knowledge - What is the price of the knowledge of sociology? What is the price of the skill of playing the piano? How much should knowledge cost for that guy in the green shirt, and how much should it cost for the girl wearing sandals? For us, the price of knowledge has been changing from year to year, getting higher and higher, although the knowledge itself stayed the same.

People wrote down their prices on pieces of paper with a bar-code, and gave those to individual students. Most people, actually, thought that knowledge should be free. Some, unlike our university authorities, didn't feel competent to answer this question, so they'd rather leave after a discussion on the government's irresponsibility, the number of students needed in the labor market, the former free education... Some felt that the value of knowledge cannot be expressed in money, so they wrote under the bar-code: "priceless".

If knowledge is priceless, what is actually being bought on the Bolognese "knowledge market"? What is being bought, actually, isn't knowledge. Knowledge cannot be handed out, it is learned. What we are being sold, what our parents pay for through taxes, and then pay for again through the tuition fees, is the process of the accommodation of education to the dictate of the market, the impoverishment of the curriculum and the extinction of "unprofitable" knowledges. If this process isn't stopped, the educational space will soon be turned into a luxury mart for buying diplomas.

Okupación del Ministerio de Educación [en Madrid]: Bolonia cumple diez años, ni uno más!!

Era día 19 de Junio de 2009, se cumplían diez años de la adhesión por parte del Estado español a la Declaración de Bolonia y al oculto plan privatizador y mercantilizador que trae consigo este conflictivo plan universitario.

Estudiantes de todas las regiones y zonas del panorama estatal decidieron juntar fuerzas, aunar esfuerzos y dar un último golpe simbólico para finalizar el año. Un golpe simbólico, que pretende señalar que el movimiento asambleario antibolonia sigue vivo, y que el año que seguirá “incordiando” a las autoridades políticas y reivindicando algo tan justo y noble como un debate público y real en el que se decida el sobre el futuro de la universidad.

Alrededor de las 8 de la mañana, y tras una noche conjunta en un centro social de la Comunidad de Madrid, los estudiantes antibolonia empezaron a acudir a la zona elegida, situada en torno a la c/ Alcala, el Ministerio de Educación.

Un grupo de estudiantes era el encargado de introducirse en el interior del edificio institucional y realizar el acto simbólico. Otro grupo de estudiantes aguantaba fuera.

Y así sucedió, consiguieron entrar y tras un período de cierta tensión, se cerraron las puertas y echaron fuera a determinados encargados de prensa, cuya labor consistía en dar cobertura informativa a una acción social. Pero aún así, y a pesar de sus intentos de ocultar lo sucedido, se realizo una gran labor informativa y de difusión con fotos, videos.. Compañeros de medios independientes desempeñaros una esplendida tarea y mostrando así su apoyo a las luchas sociales y populares.

Al poco tiempo, miembros Antidisturbios de la Policía Nacional, acudieron al lugar de lo sucedido. Al menos 6 lecheras aguardaban en la entrada del edificio. 3 miembros de las fuerzas del estado penetraron en el edificio, donde se hallaban los estudiantes. Comenzaron a identificar a los estudiantes que se encontraban fuera del edificio.

Fuera del Ministerio, otro grupo de estudiantes, en torno a unos 15, mostraban su apoyo y solidaridad con los compañer@s de dentro, que se encontraban sentados en el Hall de entrada con una actitud totalmente pacífica y reivindicativa. Se coreaban himnos y cánticos contrarios a Bolonia que provenían de las dos partes, del interior y del exterior. Afuera, los miembros de apoyo repartían panfletos entres los ciudadanos que se acercaban y pasan por el lugar y portaban una larga y amplia pancarta que hacía referencia al Cumpleaños de Bolonia: “Dećimo aniversario de Bolonia: feliz cumple, pero ni uno más. Seguimos en lucha"

Finalmente acudieron los medios convencionales, TVE se presentó en la puerta y entrevistó a varios encargados de prensa. El panorama seguía parecido, hasta que los cuerpos del estado, indicaron a los compañeros de apoyo que abandonaran el lugar en el que se encontraban y se colocaran en la acera de en frente. Así fue. Desde la acera al otro lado del Ministerio, se continuaban lanzando voces en contra de Bolonia y en apoyo a los compañeros que permanecían dentro.

Alrededor de las 10 :45 horas de la mañana comienzan a salir los activistas que se encontraban en el interior del edificio, portando una larga pancarta en la que podía leerse:“ Bolonia cumple 10 años, Ni uno mas”.
Acto seguido, los dos grupos se unieron en torno al Ministerio y comenzaron la lectura del comunicado final.

Una acción que pudo salir adelante gracias al compromiso, esfuerzo y participación activa de las estudiantes que decidieron dar un último golpe de gracia, y reafirmarse en las posturas y planteamientos que llevan defendiendo desde hace ya bastante tiempo.

Esta acción pretende ser un acto simbólico, un llamamiento a la continuidad de la lucha y una llamada de aviso y atención: seguimos ahí, con más fuerza aún si cabe. No vamos a parar de protestar y de actuar por aquello en lo que creemos. No cesaran huelgas, manifestaciones, en cierros, acciones mediáticas y ocupaciones simbólicas si son necesarias mientras nuestras demandas no sean escuchadas y tenidas en cuenta en un aspecto social tan relevante como es la educación.

Bolonia cumple diez años, ni uno más!!

Seguimos en la lucha.

More than 100,000 German students protest

More than 100,000 university students, children, and teachers took to the streets in cities across Germany on Wednesday to protest at an educational system they called underfunded and unfair.

Activists blocked the entrances to university buildings, occupied administrative offices, and marched in protest parades in cities including Berlin and Munich, as well as in university towns such as Heidelberg and Goettingen.

Around half of Germany's states allow universities to charge tuition fees, but most institutions do not and the system is chronically short of funding.

The marchers carried banners reading "Cough up the cash, rise up against social bandits", "Save education, not only the banks" and "Investment in education = guaranteed returns".

Organizers said 240,000 students took part while police estimated a number about half as high, local media said.

Marlene Gesche, a University of Potsdam student, was marching in Berlin because she said she felt cheated out of a decent education due to insufficient funding.

"I'm here protesting because I'm not really learning anything at my university", Gesche said. "There's no money for books. There is also often a lack of instructors".

A group of students chanted: "We're here and we're loud because our education is being stolen".

Organizers of the "Bildungsstreik" (or school strike), a week-long series of protests that reached its climax on Wednesday, said their aim was to spark an election-year public discussion about the future of the education system.

Margret Wintermantel, head of the German Rectors' Conference (HRK) of university presidents, said she could sympathize with some but not all of the reasons for the protests. "The student/teacher ratio is a problem", Wintermantel said.

But she rejected other demands of the protesters including abolishing tuition fees that some states have introduced and abandoning the European-standard bachelor and master degrees that are being phased in over several years.

"It's wrong to say that tuition fees limit equal opportunity for access to higher education", she said. "We haven't seen a decline in attendance where tuition fees have been introduced".

Some states now have fees of about 1,000 euros per year.

Germany's education minister, Annette Schavan, rejected most of the claims by the protesters, saying that on balance the German system had been improved in recent years. "Whoever says we have to do away with the bachelor and masters course of studies has not realized that Germany is part of a European-wide educational area", she told German radio.

School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) occupied against attack on migrant workers

PRESS RELEASE: SOAS directorate block occupied over brutal deportation of SOAS University cleaners who won living wage detained after dawn raid.

Students and allies at the University of London’s School of School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) have occupied the university today to protest against managers’ attacks on migrant workers.

Nine cleaners from the university were taken into detention after a dawn raid by immigration police on Friday.

Five have already been deported, and the others could face deportation within days. One has had a suspected heart attack and was denied access to medical assistance and even water. One was over 6 months pregnant. Many have families who have no idea of their whereabouts.

The cleaners won the London Living Wage and trade union representation after a successful “Justice for Cleaners” campaign that united workers of all backgrounds and student activists. Activists believe the raid is managers’ “revenge” for the campaign.

Immigration officers were called in by cleaning contractor ISS, even though it has employed many of the cleaners for years. Cleaning staff were told to attend an ‘emergency staff meeting’ at 6.30am on Friday (June 12).

This was used as a false pretext to lure the cleaners into a closed space from which the immigration officers were hiding to arrest them.

More than 40 officers were dressed in full riot gear and aggressively undertook interrogations and then escorted them to the detention centre. Neither legal representation nor union support were present due to the secrecy surrounding the action. Many were unable to communicate let alone fully understand what was taking place due to the denial of interpreters.

SOAS management were complicit in the immigration raid by enabling the officers to hide in the meeting room beforehand and giving no warning to them.

The cleaners were interviewed one by one. They were allowed no legal or trade union representation, or even a translator (many are native Spanish speakers).

The cleaners are members of the Unison union at SOAS. They recently went out on strike (Thursday 28 May) to protest the sacking of cleaner and union activist Jose Stalin Bermudez.

The occupation has issued a list of demands to SOAS management:

1. We call on the directorate to request the secretary of state to immediately release the detainees and to prevent the deportation of the three cleaners who are still in detention in the UK.
2. For the directorate to release a public statement condemning what has happened to the SOAS cleaners and calling for their immediate release and return.
3. To campaign for the return of the cleaners who have already been deported.
4. To bring all contract staff in house. SOAS should not use contractors, ISS or others.
5. To keep immigration officers from entering campus under ANY circumstances or other forms of collaboration with immigration or police. Universities are for education not for state violence and oppression.
6. A year's wage as reparations for all detained and deported staff.
7. To hold accountable SOAS managers who were complicit in facilitating the raid and detention of the cleaners, refusing to aid a sick worker and a pregnant woman.
8. To reinstate Jose Stalin Bermudez, the SOAS UNISON branch chair.
9. To respect the right to organise in Trade Unions unimpeded.
10. To provide space and resources for a public meeting to build support for the SOAS 9 and other migrants, in education and beyond, affected by immigration control and racism.
11. Amnesty for all those involved.

One of the detained cleaners today stated, “We’re honest people not animals. We are just here to earn an honest living for our families. SOAS management are being unfair.”

Joanne, one of the occupying students said: “Universities should be sanctuaries: places free of violence and aggression. SOAS’s reputation as a university has been tainted today due to the complicity of state brutality in the arrest of the cleaners.”

Graham Dyer, lecturer in Economics of Developing Countries and SOAS branch chair of lecturers’ union UCU, said: “Our fight has united lecturers, staff and students and has rocked SOAS management. Those managers are now lashing out. It is a disgrace that SOAS management saw fit to use a seat of learning to intimidate migrant workers. This is their underhand revenge and we will do all we can to stop migrant workers paying the price.”

The campaign to stop the deportation is supported by Tony Benn, MPs John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn, film director Ken Loach, and many trade unionists and student activists.

John McDonnell MP said: “As living wage campaigns are building in strength, we are increasingly seeing the use of immigration statuses to attack workers fighting against poverty wages and break trade union organising. The message is that they are happy to employ migrant labour on poverty wages, but if you complain they will send you back home. It is absolutely shameful.”

Ken Loach said: “This raid is the action of a bully. Migrant workers are amongst the most vulnerable – poorly paid and far from home. Recent action by Unison to secure better wages and conditions at SOAS was good news. Now we wonder if the SOAS cleaners are being targeted because they dared to organise as trade unionists.”

The current occupation is a reflection of broad outrage against these actions by all sectors of society. This raid is widely seen as a continuation of current trends to remove immigrant labour and to maintain impossibly low wages.

Cleaning contractor ISS used the same tactics against tube cleaners that went on strike with the result that key activists were deported. The use of immigration law is bering used for union busting.

USP (Universidade de São Paulo - Brasil) sitiada... alvo de violenta repressão da Polícia Militar

Scientific Community Teargassed in Brazil

120 professors and about 1,200 students and university workers were beaten and teargassed in the main campus of the University of São Paulo in Brazil last Tuesday (June 9).

Conflicts started after a one month strike of university workers whose employment status is being disputed due to a legal controversy over university autonomy to hire its workers without approval of state representatives. Over one thousand workers might loose their jobs. Workers started a strike on May 5 demanding the preservation of their jobs and other labor demands. On May 27, workers started to block the entrance of four university buildings because, according to them, university management was threatening workers who were using their legal right to strike. On June 1, administration called the military police to intervene. On June 4 professors joined the strike protesting police occupation of campus. on June 5, professors had a two hours meeting with management asking for a non-military solution to the labor conflict. However, common sense did not prevail and military police attacked a peaceful demonstration of students and workers yesterday (June 9). 120 professors were discussing the crisis when the meeting was interrupted by news of a police attack. A few minutes later teargas and concussion bombs exploded inside the building. Several of our colleagues and students were hurt. The academic community is shocked.


We ask the support of the international scientific and academic community by demanding university management the immediate withdraw of military police from campus and the non-violent resolution of labor conflicts in the university.

Professor Pablo Ortellado (Public Policy)
Professor Rogério Monteiro de Siqueira (Geometry)
Professor Jefferson Mello (Brazilian literature)
Professor Thomás Haddad (Science History)
Professor Carlos Gonçalves (Science History)
Escola de Artes, Ciências e Humanidades
Universidade de São Paulo

Further information (in Portuguese):
Associação dos Docentes da USP: www.adusp.org.br
Sindicato dos Funcionários da USP: www.sintusp.org.br