Students Worldwide Join Week of Action to Reclaim Education
RESIST! STUDENT ACTIVISM, STUDENT PROTEST
By Roshan Bliss, www.PopularResistance
May 10th, 2014
By Roshan Bliss, www.PopularResistance
May 10th, 2014
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Students across the world rallied, held teach-ins, and took to the streets this week as part of the Global Week of Action to Reclaim Education slated to take place from May 1st – 8th. The week of action was part of an ongoing effort being mounted by groups of students from many different countries to resist the commodification of education – a trend being seen across the world wherein access to education is becoming less a public good for all and more a consumer product to be purchased by those who can afford it – and to demand instead an “emancipatory education” that would help lift youth across the world from poverty and prepare them for the challenges their generation faces.
The week of action saw protests and educational events hosted in at least 10 different countries from Morocco to India to the US. Student groups organized the events as an answer to a call to action to organize the Global Week of Action against problems faced by students around the world: “Budget cuts, outsourcing, school closures, climbing costs of living and tuition fees, among other phenomena, are all linked to an increasing commercialization and privatization of education. Uniting globally is our answer to these obstacles – fighting for emancipatory education for all.”
The initial call was made by transnational student activists coordinating via the International Student Movement platform (ISM). United by the ISM’s International Joint Statement and theglobal framework, which includes the popular “#1World1Struggle” slogan and hashtag, the week of action advances the ISM’s aim to build more connection and solidarity among student and youth activists across the globe who are increasingly beset by the same sets of issues. The overarching goal of emancipatory education, for the ISM, means “being enabled to critically reflect and understand the power structures and environment surrounding him-/herself. Education must not only enable the emancipation of the individual but society as a whole.”
The ISM has helped coordinate global student actions aimed at aligning global education systems with this goal since 2008, and has been gaining momentum. One of the ISM’s co-founders and administrators is known as Mo from Marburg. A former University of Marburg student and General Students’ Committee member, Mo currently works with Free Education Movement Marburg (FreEduMM) in Germany. He has worked with ISM since its inception, and he talked with Popular Resistance about the Global Week of Action to Reclaim Education.
Talk about the International Student Movement platform. What is it?
Mo: When people hear about the International Student Movement, they often assume that it is some sort of organization or fixed network. But that’s not the case. The ISM is an open communication platform for individuals and groups around the world identifying with the struggle for free and emancipatory education. After all, people worldwide face very similar challenges within schools and universities: tuition fees, out-sourcing, repression, de-democratization, and commercialization. The ISM is used to network, exchange information, and help with coordination on the transnational level.
Since the ISM is a communication platform, nobody can represent or speak for it. The infrastructure consists mainly of a global mailing list that currently connects 1,500 contacts worldwide, a website, regular chat meetings, as well as social media channels.
The ISM was initiated in 2008 following an international day of action against the commercialization of education on November 5th. After the day of action, which was mostly coordinated on the transnational level by individual activists in Paris, Dublin, Bristol, Students Worldwide Join Week of Action to Reclaim Education | PopularResistance.Org: