National Convention Against Fees and Cuts [@ UK]

On 6th of February UCL Students for Free Education will host the National Convention Against Fees and Cuts, an all-day conference of action, discussion and entertainment for anyone who thinks higher education should be free for all. We are looking to call the conference in co-operation with all sections of the student movement still willing to stand and fight – especially sympathetic unions. With a relentless assault of cuts, threats and marketisation from the Government, and an NUS leadership unwilling to seriously challenge it, there is a real danger that Free Education – until so recently a reality – could fall off the political map altogether.

If Free Education is to remain on the agenda, it is now more vital than ever that the student movement set out its stall and reclaim the momentum. In part, this will mean restating what we stand for – that education is a right not a privilege, that it should be democratically controlled for the benefit of all. But most crucially we must set out our stall, commit ourselves and our organisations to a renewed and organised struggle against cuts and marketisation, as well as properly addressing the wider questions – what should education be about, and how could and should it be funded if not by us?

Continuar a ler o artigo...A National Convention should give us an opportunity to address these questions, and to reignite student activism about education. It will also give us a route to participating internationally: we look to invite speakers from abroad, and to draw conclusions from the international fight for Free Education.

And, as, always, we will need to do that thing so seldom mentioned by earnest gatherings – have fun! We anticipate big attendance, free food, comedy, music, high-profile speakers and bags of opportunity to contribute.

If you are active in an organisation or Union that is sympathetic to Free Education and might be willing to support the conference, please get in touch with us at ucl.free.education@gmail.com We will be looking to co-ordinate the collaborative elements of the conference – such as a possible ‘declaration of fighting Unions’ – with all of its supporters at some point in early autumn. Please get in touch, and join our Facebook group.

We will be working on the logistical aspects of the convention for some time to come, but we are already aware that it will be difficult for some to attend all day without some kind of accommodation, and will be drawing up a list of people willing to host.

What is the Convention about?

Yesterday was DAY OF UNIversiTY: December, 17

More info [and some other photos]...

Student movement in Croatia: stronger than ever

For the past two weeks, over 800 students have participated in the blockading of the filosofski fakultet, one of the main university buildings in Croatia’s capital Zagreb. Just over two weeks ago, a plenum was held with the decision made to occupy this building, where much of the social sciences and arts/humanities teaching takes place, and to block all teaching taking place there. This might seem short-sighted at first glance, as students themselves are the first to feel the ill-effects of no teaching. But the decisison was made, and was necessary to highlight how seriously students oppose the current government’s attempts to create a market in education, and to make students pay for this ‘privilege’. Two weeks of tuition lost to this generation of students is nothing compared to the years of university level education which many future potential students will lose as a result of not being able to afford to go to university. The blockade was impressively well organised. Students made sure the building was kept clean. The consumption of alcohol and smoking were forbidden inside the building during the blockade, and students organised themselves into groups of redari (monitors) who kept tabs on what was going on in every classroom in the building. I volunteered as a redar almost every day and it was interesting to see just how much the blockade had polarised the students and the professors. Whilst the majority of professors were in favour of the blockade, a few departments had a majority against the student action. The most significant department voting against being unsurprisingly (to those who know a little about the history of Croatia), German studies, who persistently tried to hold classes on a day to day basis. An alternative lecture programme also took place, with 3-5 guest lectures taking place on a daily basis. I gave a workshop on the commericalisation of education in the UK, with special focus on Manchester University, and how students have organised themselves against such neoliberal impositions, and crucially, how the struggles currently taking place in Manchester, Croatia, Serbia, Germany among others are connected.

Continuar a ler o artigo...The most shocking aspect of the blockade was without a doubt the mainstream media coverage. Public opinion in Croatia is generally in favour of free university level education, certainly at the undergraduate level (currently only the first year is free to a majority of students, although some have to pay for all three years. The students were pushing for free higher education at all levels). With this in mind, during the last blockade (last April, *check*), the main newspaper Jutarnji List was subtle in its opposition to the blockade. This time around however, they were bluntly open in their demonisation of the blockade, the national front page headline reading “Stop terrorizing those who want to learn” (Prestanite terrorizirati one koji žele učiti). This headline was accompanied with a picture of the student protestors outside the faculty with a banner, but Jutarnji List had stamped a new slogan over the banner: “The future is our work” (Budućnost je naš posao). Incidentally, this headline is also a slogan scattered across advertising boards over the country for one of the main social democratic candidates (Milan Bandić) vying for presidency, national elections taking place in Croatia on 27th december.

However, the protest did receive some positive media coverage in the left wing media (most notably in Zarez) and the students organised workshops on media representation and coverage of the protests. The blockade in Zagreb was part of a wider series of blockades at several universities throughout Croatia, including Rijeka and Osijek. As a result, the government have yet again postponed indefinitely the introduction of a new law which would give a centralised management committee the power to veto staff decisions made in university departments, thus taking power away from lecturers and reducing the intellectual autonomy of the university. The blockade has not only been victorious in this vein, but has also been crucial in opening a big public debate on higher education funding, with the vast majority of the public being in favour, even including many students who were against the tactics of the blockade (not knowing that the other main option students could take to voice their concerns, the student council (studentski zbor) had been coopted by a clique of corrupt social democrats close to the main political parties (HDZ, SDP etc) and who were keeping suspiciously silent regarding the struggle for a free education. A story which sounds familiar to many readers in England following the NUS debate perhaps?
Students voted yesterday (friday) to end the blockade and are now spending this weekend carefully tidying up the faculty building ready for a return to lectures on monday. The decision was made to continue with the blockade next term, having shown the government that they have the means, human-power and public opinion behind them, and that they are willing to continue to fight against the proposed neoliberal reforms until their goals are realised.

National Call for a Strike and Day of Action to Defend Public Education [on March 4th, in USA]

California has recently seen a massive movement erupt in defense of public education — but layoffs, fee hikes, cuts, and the re-segregation of public education are attacks taking place throughout the country. A nationwide resistance movement is needed.
We call on all students, workers, teachers, parents, and their organizations and communities across the country to massively mobilize for a Strike and Day of Action in Defense of Public Education on March 4, 2010. Education cuts are attacks against all of us, particularly in working-class communities and communities of color.

The politicians and administrators say there is no money for education and social services. They say that “there is no alternative” to the cuts. But if there’s money for wars, bank bailouts, and prisons, why is there no money for public education?

We can beat back the cuts if we unite students, workers, and teachers across all sectors of public education — pre K-12, adult education, community colleges, and state-funded universities. We appeal to the leaders of the trade union movement to support and organize strikes and/or mass actions on March 4. The weight of workers and students united in strikes and mobilizations would shift the balance of forces entirely against the current agenda of cuts and make victory possible.

Building a powerful movement to defend public education will, in turn, advance the struggle in defense of all public-sector workers and services and will be an inspiration to all those fighting against the wars, for immigrants rights, in defense of jobs, for single-payer health care, and other progressive causes.

Why March 4? On October 24, 2009 more than 800 students, workers, and teachers converged at UC Berkeley at the Mobilizing Conference to Save Public Education. This massive meeting brought together representatives from over 100 different schools, unions, and organizations from all across California and from all sectors of public education. After hours of open collective discussion, the participants voted democratically, as their main decision, to call for a Strike and Day of Action on March 4, 2010. All schools, unions and organizations are free to choose their specific demands and tactics — such as strikes, rallies, walkouts, occupations, sit-ins, teach-ins, etc. — as well as the duration of such actions.

Let’s make March 4 an historic turning point in the struggle against the cuts, layoffs, fee hikes, and the re-segregation of public education.

The California Coordinating Committee

El Plan Bolonia explicado sin rodeos [video]

Aqui teneis a un decano (Juan Carlos Mejuto) de la Universidad de Vigo, aclarando de una vez que es Bolonia... Sin tonterias ni florituras.
El video entero dura 11 minutos (YouTube limita a 10) y partirlo era un poco raro, así que he dejado sólo lo referente a Bolonia, y no el trocito en que critíca el sistema universitario gallego. Si alguien quiere verlo entero, podeis sacarlo aqui.

DAY OF UNIversiTY will be @ 17th of December '09

Dear friends and occupants,

We are still here, those cr itical students who are not prepared to accept the current situation at our universities. The sale-out of education, access barriers and the de-democratization, which is going on at our universities, still need to be stopped, since the people in charge haven’t yet realized that it’s high time they reacted to our claims and angle off 180 degrees into the only right direction there is: the direction of free education without barriers.

Thus, the struggle against those who want to take us for fools a nd want to sell out our education, must continue – even before, during and after Christmas holidays.

Many people in Austria and other European countries have no idea about the fact that there are many more universities occupied than only the ones in their country. Many people don’t have the slightest idea that there are more than 100 universities either occupied or somehow involved in the protests. You can see the occupied universities under this location.

Many people have not yet realized that thousands of students all over the world are standing up for their rights, and not only fight for themselves, but also for the next generation and for a better future in general. It is now our job to stop the ignorance!

The people out there should realize that the protests are not only a “local” problem of each country, but that the whole society all over the world is affected by the grievance which we, the students, are pointing out and which against we are defending ourselves. Therefore, we would like to invite you to participate in the

DAY OF UNI(versi)TY – United for free education!

on Thursday, 17th Dezember 2009

Especially before Christmas, the majority of the consumption-oriented population is busy with shopping, instead of getting concerned about the real problems, whose solving is long overdue! Let’s wake up those people and let’s show them that we are standing behind our claim f for a free education in unity and that this issue concerns each and every one of us.

The "International Day of Action“ was yesterday. Tomorrow, we will appear before the public in unity under the slogan DAY OF UNI(versi)TY, far beyond our own country borders.

There are some universities which are not yet as widely mobilized as universities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. That is why we have come up with the idea to plan a common operation/campaign/activity, which can or even should be carried out by all participants of the protest movement for free education in their cities. Of course, it would be great if this could happen simultaneously, in order to demonstrate our unity, despite spacial distances.

Continuar a ler o artigo...Our ideas:

On the 17th of December 2009 at 11 o’clock in the morning, students go out on the streets in numerous cities in Europe and worldwide. We will be equipped with signs, posters or banners which carry the names of all occupied or involved universities. The signs might say: “We are Heidelberg”, “We are Paris” or “We are Vienna”. The people should see in which cities universities are occupied and in which cities there are student protests.

At the same time, flyers can/should be handed out to passer-bys to inform them about the current situation. In the centre of each city a flashmob or different activity should take place. There are no limits as far as creativity is concerned!

Possible actions could be, for example, a “reading-demo”, which is a silent demo where all participants sit or lay down on the street and read or study something. Another possibility would be to act out some kind of choreography with the signs or to form a certain figure, like a country or a university. Another idea is to act out a scene in the style of a street theatre. Or what about a big pillow fight?

Anyway, it is important that we all have the signs with the occupied universities in common in order to demonstrate unity and solidarity. The more we are, the less they can ignore us!

Let’s not hide but stand up for our rights together!

The actions should, if possible, be video-taped. Afterwards we will put the sequences together and create a small documentary about the “Day of Unity”, including all the activities from the participating universities, which we will publish on YouTube.

Please let us know, whether you are interested in participating in the “Day of Unity”. If yes, then please organize yourself, mobilize and join the united movement. Inform the people out there, whether the media, friends, acquaintances, relatives, students of high schools, etc. Invite everybody to participate in solidarity in the event.

Everyone should know that and why we are here and that we won’t be gone too soon!

SFSU is occupied: mobilize support!!!

• To those disaffected and affected by the budget cuts.


• To those laid-off faculty who have been sent off this campus because Robert Corrigan values his six-figure income more than your pedagogy.


• To those workers, always the unseen heroes who are the first to take the sacrifices.


• To those janitors, who were denied from doing their jobs because of us. We do this for you.

40 years ago on this campus, San Francisco State College gave in to the demands of the 5-month Ethnic Studies strike, which gained valuable educational and economic opportunities for all Black and Third-World people. Self-determination for people of color was the word of the day, and although concessions were made, the struggle for self-determination of the working-class has not ended, but is going through a new phase of global class struggle intensified by the polarization of capital and labor.

Also 40 years ago, Indians of All Nations took a famous federal property known as Alcatraz Island, or The Rock, and again occupied the land that Lakota Indians had taken years prior unsuccessfully. The organizers, American Indians from tribes all across the continent, included young Richard Oakes, a Mohawk SF State student. The occupation lasted 19 months, whereby the IAN demanded a new American Indian Center on the unused surplus property, created a Bureau of Caucasian Affairs to deal with the white man, and purchased the island with feathers and beads worth more than the money paid to the native inhabitants of Manhattan Island by colonialists.

We Are Still Here

Continuar a ler o artigo...The legacy of the militant student and working-class movements of the 1960’s lit the revolutionary consciousness of the globe, from the Latin-American workers’ struggles to the anti-colonial uprisings in Africa, and back home to the Black Panther Party in Oakland and the Third World Liberation Front. These movements challenged not only the dominant capitalist hegemony through class struggle, they spread new ideas of how to struggle.

Universities worldwide, like those in Austria, in Greece, Germany and our comrades across the bay at UC Berkeley have recently used the tactic of occupation as a means to challenge bourgeois property relations, where not production but knowledge and ideas are socially produced but privately appropriated for the ruling class, which categorizes and divides the working-class into hierarchal constructions that reproduce our high-level managers at the UC’s, our technical workers at the CSU’s, and the lower layers of the proletariat left to the crumbs of a community college education meaningless in this capitalist crisis; great training for the workplace, where the administration becomes the corporate board, the professor becomes the boss, and the tailist union bureaucrats become…well, I guess some things stay the same. The student is the worker, adding use-value to her education for future exploitation and extraction of surplus-value.

Although occupation, or reclaiming space, is not a historically new idea, it is a new form of struggle for many of those disillusioned with the promises of lobbying, those too tired of petitioning “our” elected leaders, those who have lost all faith in politics as they know it. As direct actions like these redefine socially-acceptable modes of protest, occupations themselves redefine the power-relations at the site of struggle. We are occupying because we understand that the budget cuts, which are manifestations of capital in its search for untouched investment and the prospect of profits, are enforced through our consent, through our submission, when we focus the gaze of rebellion at the self-imposed sites of bourgeois political debate and conflict like the Capitol Building in Sacramento, or even its local subsidiary office labelled Administration Building at every elementary school, at every junior high, every high school, every college and university.

Our power as working-class people does not reside in the uneven and rigged political game where winners are chosen by their capacity to pacify those who wish to change the system, by their capacity to coerce the oppressed into rolling the dice one more time for the sake of chance: the opportunity that this time, maybe this time, change can come peacefully for the benefit of those subject to endless waves of unemployment, for the benefit of those faced with the racism of the workplace, for the benefit of those attacked by sexism and homophobia on the streets. The reclaiming of space that is occurring as we write this statement is a challenge to the assumption that politics and the power of political control is only suited for white-male representatives in black suits. The real power exists here, at the site of exploitation, be it the school or the workplace. We plant the seeds of these institutions as workers, students, staff, and faculty, constantly maintaining and watering them, looking after them as a gardener takes after hir garden, but we are not allowed to enjoy the fruits of that labor. This is the contradiction exposed.

By redefining and reclaiming these spaces, we expose the true violent nature of our society. After escalated police violence on the UC campuses in Los Angeles and Berkeley, student occupiers rightly proclaimed that “behind every fee increase, a line of riot police.” In this structure, the Business Building of San Francisco State University, usually occupied by financial advisors for war-profiteering companies, there is no business as usual. Outside, the invisible hand of the market is holding a gun, revealing itself to us with a badge emblazoned “UPD”. The act of occupation is violent because it is a threat; we are not those who wield weapons, we are not those who possess the means to subordinate people to not just physical violence, but the psychological violence that disempowers us to believe that we do not have the power to resist and fight back.

Then again, We Are Still Here

Jovens ocupam Politécnico de Atenas (Grécia)

Depois de uma manifestação, em memória do adolescente morto há um ano pela polícia, um grupo de jovens ocupou a Escola Politécnica de Atenas.

Cerca de 300 jovens conseguiram [no passado domingo, dia 6] ocupar a Escola Politécnica de Atenas, no centro da capital grega, a seguir a uma manifestação de estudantes em memória do adolescente morto há um ano por um polícia.

O grupo lançou cocktails molotov contra as forças policiais que faziam um perímetro de segurança junto à escola, incendiando dois automóveis e vários caixotes do lixo. Importantes forças anti-motim foram então destacadas para reforçar a segurança no local, o bairro de Exarchia.

Esporadicamente, segundo jornalistas no local, grupos de jovens saem dos edifícios da escola para lançar pedras e cocktails molotov sobre as grades para a grande avenida para a qual o estabelecimento dá, fechada ao trânsito pela polícia.

A Escola Politécnica já tinha servido de refúgios aos manifestantes durante os confrontos que em Dezembro do ano passado se seguiram à morte de Alexis Grigoropoulos, de 15 anos.

Durante as manifestações [no passado domingo, dia 6], a polícia esforçou-se por impedir o acesso às Universidades, em virtude de uma lei que limita consideravelmente acções policiais dentro dos estabelecimentos de ensino.

Essa lei, que a Direita considera estimular a impunidade dos desordeiros, foi adoptada na sequência da violenta repressão da revolta estudantil contra a junta militar (1967-74) ocorrida na Escola Politécnica a 17 de Novembro de 1973.

Spread the word: UC Berkeley reoccupied!!!

Yesterday (Monday, December 7) members of the University of California community reoccupied Wheeler Hall, the site of the November 20 police attacks on UC students.
Keep up to date on the occupation at http://liveweek.net.

Kritische und Solidarische Universität (KriSU)

From 5. to 6. Dec. about 50 activists occupied a vacant building in the Universitätsstraße, Vienna. The building once was part of the university of Vienna, and has been sold by the Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft. The aim of the occupation was to emphasize the demand for space for the Solidarity University (KriSU). The occupied building was formerly used for academic activities and is a victim of privatization in the framework of the neoliberal attack. It was privatized despite the acute need for space for universities and the urgency of selfmanaged and free space for emancipative education.

This occupation is the kick-off of further activities in order to build up the Solidarity University in Vienna. Activists will continue the struggle for adequate space for KriSU.

KriSU aims towards a lively integration of research, teaching and praxis, according to the principles of selfmanagement, feminism and anti-discrimination. It strives for a non-commercial, emancipative space independent from the state. KriSU wants to organize a university for all, regardless of formal educational degrees. It wants to produce knowledge for an alternative to capitalism that leads out of the fundamental crisis, together with a variety of different societal groups. KriSU is working for a Solidarity Economy based on cooperation, selfmanagement and community orientation.

A statement in support of the Faculty, students and staff of the University of California from the University of Southern Maine Faculty Senate

We, members of the University of Southern Maine (USM) Faculty Senate, cannot remain indifferent in front of the repression by the police of the protest which the students of the University of California (UC) have organized against the decision by the UC administration to layoff many faculty and staff and raise tuition fees by 32%. It is unacceptable that a mass mobilization in defense of the California system of education be addressed with batons.

Equally important, the de-funding of the California education system is a defeat also for teachers, staff and students in Maine and across the country, given the important role that UC has played in the history of public higher education in North America, and the example this policy sets for other university administrators.

Already, in state after state, in the name of the economic crisis, university budgets are slashed, jobs are terminated, and rising tuition fees are forcing students out of the universities, which are thereby becoming accessible only to the well-to-do. It may be only a matter of time until many of us face the same cuts the UC students, staff and faculty are now protesting and have to choose between capitulation to an unjust policy or brutalization.

Consequently, we, members of the USM Faculty Senate, express our support of the resistance which the UC faculty, staff and students have organized against lay-offs, furloughs, and tuition increases, and call upon the California legislature, the governor, and the UC governing board to rescind such a disastrous policy. We also condemn the violent suppression of the non-violent protest of the UC faculty, staff and students and call for the release of all students arrested and the dropping of the charges against them.

Contro la riforma, verso sciopero dell' 11 Dicembre

Students beaten and brutally evicted in Frankfurt

This afternoon the president of the Goethe University of Frankfurt/M threatened the occupiers of the "Casino" [a building on campus] that he will exercise property rights, if they don't leave the building within 10 minutes. Most students were not intimidated and decided to stay. One professor also stayed and defended the students' position.

Soon after [6.10pm CET] special police forces stormed the place.

The students, together with the professor, barricaded themself inside the "ballroom" and were beginning their scheduled alternative seminar titled "What does emancipatory education mean?". Soon after the police managed to break through and entered the place. The windows were covered [to prevent the media from taking footages of the eviction] and everyone inside was encircled by the police. The robocops asked the media to leave the room - those who didn't follow instructions immediately were pressured to do so.

Students linked arms with each other, but didn't actively resist. So they were carried outside - all 130 of them. Hundreds gathered outside the building [but still on campus] and protested in support and against repression. Soon they were attacked by police forces as well - mostly with batons. Various students were injured and had to be transfered to the hospital. One girl had two fingers broken. Some were chased through the city.

In the end 300 students were ID'd [incl. photographed and fingerprints taken]. Hundreds received bans from campus or even the city by the police. Many are expected to be tried and are charged with "breach of domestic peace" [among others]. At least 2 students were taken into custody.

Soon after the eviction many gathered inside the "autonomous space" on campus called "Koz" to discuss on how to continue. People are angry and will not give up so easily.

As a direct reaction to these incidents about 50 students spontaneously decided to protest through the inner city of Marburg [Germany] to inform the public about the violence.

Further acts in Solidarity of the students in Frankfurt/M and against repression & police violence are most welcome.

Students protests in Serbia are on a high tide

Wave of student struggle is sweeping over the streets of Serbian capital, Belgrade. Three marches of some 1,500 students held on Monday, Wednesday and Friday have marked a new phase in student organising. These protests were the most massive and political ones in the past 10 years. It was also the first time for us to block two main bridges that connect two halves of city – we blocked Branko’s bridge on Wednesday and Friday and Gazela on Friday, after protesting in front of an international conference on Bologna reforms. Our last two protests also had one important person in the front row – Joe the dredger, who is a symbol of the 5th of October 2000 revolution, when we toppled the hated president Milosevic.

The six demands we’ve had by now all deal with specific problems that came out of neoliberal and bologna reforms of education. Protests were started by the official student representatives, led by the president of the Student parliament of University in Belgrade, who is also a member of the ruling party. Never the less, our student group Another University is Possible, that stands against the bologna reforms and for free education for all, made some crucial interventions in coalition with other student representatives who want to see this protest win – pushing towards generalising our demands and connecting with our collegues internationally, as well as with workers. We’ve printed hundreds of bulletins, together with a letter of support from Austria, which was then repeatedly cited in the biggest Serbian daily.

Yesterday, we were supposed to have another meeting with the government, but instead the president of the Student parliament got a statement in which the government ‘promisses’ to fulfill five out of six demands, without saying when or how they will do that. As most of us expected, he decided to end the protest and called his collegues to go back home. The rest of us realized that we were scammed, so we immediately organised a plenum of a few hundred students where we decided to demand that those representatives who failed us step down, but also to radicalise our demands and tactics – we are now talking about organising democratically, occupying our Universities and demanding free education for all.

We already won the support of three trade unions, one inter-striking cometee and union of taxi and truck drivers. Next Monday we will be protesting with the support of some 200-300 taxi veachles, and on Tuesday we should be accompanied by other workers who supported us.

This is presenting a huge problem for our government who only just managed to get a huge loan from Russia and prevent the worker struggls from exploding. This is why any kind of international support is crucial to us at the moment. We must connect our struggle with the current struggles worldwide. The next week will be crucial.

One world – one struggle!

Call for International Day of Action: 5th December

Worldwide action – Mass Rally in Vienna

All over the globe people are fighting against a continuous deterioration of education systems. Starting from Austria and Germany at the 23rd of October 2009 a wave of protests, squats of university buildings, strikes, general assembles and other activities has swapped over to many other countries.

Nevertheless media and politics still do not regard the importance of this international movement. That's why we want to put things right!

Next Saturday, the 5th of December 2009 will be the next International Day of Action. In Vienna we are planning a mass rally with participants from the whole country. In the other Universities of Austria we will draw attention once again with smaller creative activities!

This call goes out to all of us! Students, Pupils, Teachers, Researchers! United we are strong! Education is not for sale!

Everyone can participate in this global campaign! Public discussions, demonstrations, street theatre, protest songs, strikes, squats of public buildings, info campaigns, letters to th editors, flash mobs, window flags, sit-ins, etc.

What do you think about a joint flash mob, doing the same thing, at the same time, in all countries?

We are looking forward to a strong international campaign!