Austrian Students Conquering the Lecture Halls
In Austria students have conquered lecture halls to demonstrate against the decreasing payments for universities and the introduction of Bachelor and Master as graduations.
The beginning of the protests
The protests have started in the Akademie der bildenden Künste (Academia of visual arts) when students and also some professors occupied the hallway with posters stating: "Education is not for sale"
Students of the main university of Vienna then conquered their biggest lecture hall and decided not to leave it anymore. At the beginning, a lot of police came and it was unclear if they would clear the whole hall. However, this has not been done and the Viennese students are still occupying the lecutre hall without leaving it (even at night). Other students demonstrated in the streets.
Image taken by unibrennt, licensed under CC-BY-NC
Other universities have also started with plenary assemblies in their lecture halls. The students also form working groups to spread the protests and phrase their postulations.
University is not economy's property
The main aspects of the protests are the adjustments with regard to more efficient studies. The studies shall be faster and better for companies, but the creativity will be lost. Especially the plan to introduce this system in the Academia of Arts explains why the protests have started there.
Image taken by sepp_der_bauer, licensed under CC-BY-NC
The students want to keep freedom when choosing their fields of study, whereas the new system would take away this liberty. A big claim is the prevention of entrance restrictions for some courses (since there are too many students), instead they want bigger halls and more professors. Moreover, they demand the possibility of taking a Master's degree for everybody who has made a Bachelor's degree, because at the moment it is possible that you cannot go further after thee years of studying.
They are also demonstrating against the introduction of tuition fees, because they are unsocial and stop poor people from studying. The students claim that tuition fees "can never be socially just".
Each university has its own postulations, but these are the main aspects that everybody cares about.
Austria in numbers
Considering the payments of Austria for tertiary eduction (i.e. studies), you can say that the protest is right. Until 2005 Austria has increased payments for all fields of education as well as tertiary eduction, but in 2006 the payments for tertiary eduction have been reduced from 3.30 billion Euro to 2.06 billion Euro.
This is of course a major cut and could have led to the current situation.
Universities in Germany
In case you're wondering why I am posting this on a blog about Germany: Austria is a German speaking country and sometimes it is called the "little brother" of Germany, but moreover universities in Germany have started participating. I do not know about a university in Germany where lecture halls are occupied, but of one university I know that they held a press conference about "the bad conditions and the sloppiness with the tuition fees".
Update
I just heard that one of the students at the technical university of Vienna has travelled to Germany to talk with students there and spread the Austrian happenings.
Friday, October 30, 2009
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