The Right To Protest

News The right to protestAs Quebec erupts over plans to increase tuition fees by the equivalent of £200, and twelve people (including Professor Joshua Clover) who protested against a campus bank at University of California–Davis begin a trial that could see them imprisoned for eleven years and fined $1 million each, what of the scores […]

Education Changes: the Hidden Agenda

EDUCATION CHANGES: THE HIDDEN AGENDA The proposals for Modularisation, Credit Accumulation and Credit Transfer (MOCACT) currently under consideration at universities have profound implications for students. Yet there has been virtually no consultation with student bodies. Why? Proponents of MOCACT argue that it will increase student choice; enlarge the range of qualification levels; increase freedom of […]

Compulsory downshifting

News Compulsory downshiftingThe landmark case of the Open University v. its part-time staff is grinding its way through the courts towards likely victory for the associate staff on pro-rata fulltime employment benefits. Whilst this highlights a particularly bad case of handme-down employment conditions in the HE sector (one recent estimate puts pay at £8.00 per […]

It’s a struggle: ‘For a New Europe: University Struggles Against Austerity’, École des hautes études en sciences sociales/Université Paris VIII, February 2011

This three-day meeting, hosted by the Italian activist collective Edu-factory, attracted 300–400 university students, faculty, community leaders and activists from across Europe, as well as from Tunisia, Russia, Ukraine, Canada, the United States and Chile. It sought to provide a forum for groups to meet and share strategies of resistance against the current sweep of […]