Students across Austria have been in occupation for more than three months, battling against a government that is assaulting education funding and attempting to push through neoliberal reforms.
For weeks now students have shown that they are capable of organising themselves – and not only in Austria. More than 100 working groups have grown out of the occupation at the main university in Vienna.
For the past two weeks a new wave of student protest has swept through the streets of the Serbian capital, Belgrade. Four marches with thousands of students taking part have opened up a new chapter of opposition to the neoliberal "reforms" in education and beyond.
Seeing the recent wave of student occupations and demonstrations across Europe and the world, some people argue that nothing like it will ever happen in Britain.
A wave of student struggle is sweeping over the streets of the Serbian capital, Belgrade. Three marches of some 1,500 students held on Monday, Wednesday and Friday last week have marked a new phase in student organisation.
Around 50 Essex university students joined protests on Monday of this week to demand the reinstatement of six student union staff who have been sacked.
The new college year looks like it will be a volatile one. It has begun with the economic crisis hitting home. Thousands of university applicants have been denied places while the lucky ones have been crammed into overcrowded lecture theatres and accommodation.
A new breed of shark is out to sink its teeth into students, hoping to fleece the young and financially inexperienced of their student loans before they’ve even started term.
‘I work for £6 per hour for Response Handling, an outsourced student loans call centre. We’re here to put out fires when raging students and parents phone to find out what’s going on with applications they made months ago.
Anxious students gathered outside Sir George Monoux College in Walthamstow, east London on Thursday of last week, as they did at colleges and sixth forms up and down Britain.
