Bildungstreik 2009
by Claudia Bernardi & Anna Curcio (excerpted from Edufactory)
As a wave, several hundred of Berlin students blocked the city against the German ministers meeting today. The students have occupied first the Ministry of Finance, then the City Hall and the train station in Alexander Platz. The protest and the metropolis blockade are still going on.
On Wednesday, June 17th 260,000 kids, parents, students and researchers took to the streets of more than 70 Germany cities to protest the educational system, demanding more funding, better conditions of labour, a halt to the rise of university tuition fees, and a higher quality of knowledge in a university where now students “learn anything”. In Berlin, a huge demonstration of 30,000 people started in Alexander Platz and arrived at Humboldt University: the place and symbol of the old model of the elite university has been invaded by students and symbolically covered by toilet paper.
These demonstrations are part of a week-long series of protests called BildungsStreik (strike of education), organized by universities and schools across Germany in the last months. “Selforganization to live and learn” and “Sabotage the factory of knowledge“ are some of the demands of students mobilized against the Bologna Process. Although it has failed, other universities are trying to apply Bologna Process in different part of the world, i.e. in US or South Asia. After the demonstration in Berlin, several direct actions took place in different parts of the city. A large group of students took possession again of the Villa BELL building inside Technische Universität, that the administrative bureaucracy removed from the students’ selfmanaging last year. This liberated space is now used to organize discussions about the future of mobilizations, free education and the process of hierarchization in the university.
Since Monday, several faculties of Freie Universität and Technische Universität have been occupied by students that are organizing selfmanaged activities and debates. Some of the students that are occupying the Faculty of Political Science of Technische Universität are part of the European anomalous wave, that all year long supported and spread the slogan “we won’t pay for your crisis”.
On Tuesday, June 16th students occupied the administrative buildings of Technische Universität, the university where a huge attack on the free spaces selfmanaged by students is taking place. Today other events are coming: the symbolic “bank robbery action“ in LosAngeles Platz and a meeting, with members of Edu-Factory Collective, about the crisis of the university and the connection of global struggles in the occupied spaces of Villa BELL Building.
On Friday, June 19 all the German ministers will meet in Berlin to commemorate the anniversary of Bologna process, but surely there ‘s nothing to celebrate!
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