---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
Mo <international.students.movement@googlemail.com>
Date: Sat, May 19, 2012 at 9:14 PM
Subject: [ismna] Dates for a first GLOBAL EDUCATION STRIKE in history agreed on!
To: ISM <
international_students_movement@lists.riseup.net>,
ism.asia@lists.riseup.net,
ismna@lists.riseup.net,
free.education.movement@lists.riseup.net,
defend-education@googlegroups.com,
makeouruniversity@googlegroups.com,
cuny_movement@lists.riseup.net
Hey there,yesterdays global chat meeting was attended by about 25 people in Cairo, Kuala Lumpur, Marburg, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Vienna, Zürich as well as somewhere in Italy and Spain.
The main focus was on the idea to call for a first GLOBAL EDUCATION STRIKE in history: http://ism-global.net/discussion_global_education_strike_2012
The participants agreed on the following:
- after setting up a poll, sending a call for feedback to the global ISM mailing list
and discussing a common timeframe for a Global Education Strike during
chat meetings it was decided to call for
a Global Day of Action for Education on October 18th
and a Global Education Strike for November 14-21st!!
the idea is to have strikes at as many educational institutions simultaneously during those 7 days as possible. of course the situation is different at each location, therefore not everyone might be able to strike for a whole week - or sometimes not even a few days. so some might also 'just' arrange a rally or other types of actions in the context of the Global Education Strike. Most importantly is the COMMUNICATION on the global level!!
- we invite to the next chat meeting on June 1st - if nobody on the global
mailing list rejects this date. Anybody interested in participating in the next global chat meeting and not having time on June 1st (friday) - noon EST, 4pm GMT/UTC, 6pm CET, 9.30pm IST (to check what time 4pm UTC is for you: www.timeanddate.com)?? Then send a mail to the mailing list or drop a line at united.for.education@gmail.com before May 23rd (wednesday)!
Besides these important decisions participants also shared reports on their local situation:
- Quebec:
"To give a quick overview of the movment
here, before going in details, the province wide general strike
started in February. Next Tuesday, we hit tht 100th day of general
strike. The movement have seen some successes and held it ground over
this period, but we definitely have had and and having a lot more of
our share of challenges. Now a new law was introduced, which is basically to suspend the
semester until August, and removes any right from the student
associations to go (vote) on strike, and comes with penalities of
between 25,000$ to 125,000$ if the associaiton execs go against that.
Last but definitely not the least, the
right to assembly and demonstration is being infringed - any
gathering bigger than 25 people have to inform the police before
hand, and give a lot of details. Students and general public is pretty
enraged by this, and the plans are to challenge this at all levels.
there.s been protests every night since 23 nights, and the plans are
to intensify them."
"Here in Quebec its pretty big, 3 months
strike, there have been protests everynight for the last 2
weeks, and if there is a global Strike this fall we will be in."
- Vancouver:
"We literally started organizing last
night in van- but we were waiting to pick a date here befoere
starting an action plan. Its all very informal and small. And the day
before ubc raised tuition 3% like every year so I suppose
depressing. But heres hoping this is a turning point."
- Toronto:
"Has been trying to organize protests in
solidarity with Quebec but they have been fairly small and spaced out
from lack of effort and a lot of folk being skeptical. There are
plans for the next fews months to initiate a twin movement over
here.The priority at the moment is raising awareness and replacing
apathy with determination and belief.
we have teams moving back and forth
from QC to TO to make this happen. And slowly but surely it seems to
be working."
- Germany:
"I can just share with you that school
and university activists from across Germany met at the beginning of May and decided to call for a week of action in november. the exact
date is still to be decided - also depending on the coordinations on
the global level."
"here the commercialisation of education
works through increasing cuts to the budgets of the public
universities, which leads among other things to a dependency of
universities to private corporation to fund their research projects.
also higher education is transformed in all of europe (european
union) to produce "better" human capital faster and more
efficiently."
- Kuala Lumpur:
"A little update to all of you, we did a
rally regarding abolish PTPTN - the study loan, and call for free
education at 15th April. And we occupy our independence square with
#occupydataran movement as protest camp for 14 days. Now the movement will focus on free
education and revise education system.
PTPTN is a higher education loan. need
to pay back later when graduate with 1-3% interest."
=> an entry on the rally in Kuala Lumpur was also published on the ISM website:
http://www.ism-global.net/free_education_rally_KL_april14
- Austria:
"in austria, tuition fees were just
reimplemented, after being abolished earlier this year due to
non-conformity with the constitution, but not much is happening and
most people dont really care :/"
"they are actually voting now at each
university if they should introduce tuition fees or not. at some they did now and at others they
rejected them."
- Italy:
"University reform in late 2010
(Berlusconi government) with the aim of more efficient and companies
based universities. grand budgets cuts."
- Spain:
"the university of sevilla will have a
strike for 10 days that start before the General Stike in Education
(22th May). In Madrid the teacher for School and High School have a
strike since september. The government high the tuition fees a 108%
respect the last year."
#1world1strugglegreetings from marburg,
mo.
--
Let's get organized and unite in our struggle for free emancipatory education - worldwide!
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