Students, teachers, workers and parents around the world ask themselves: Is the public education system still serving the interests of the public, or is the focus shifting to implement education systems that primarily serve private and business interests? Tuition fees are – once introduced – sky-rocketing, universities and schools are turned into businesses, student debt keeps increasing and education budgets cut.

 

Institutions of higher education become highly dependant on their ability to attract sponsorships (usually from economic actors). Consequently only those institutions and departments are able to survive, that are deemed valuable by sponsors.

 

Public education systems, from kindergarten to university, must prioritize emancipating aspects, be free and accessible to all. A proper democracy only exists, if society consists of emancipated and self-determined individuals, that are able to critically reflect their (social) environment, developments and power structures. Any system, that doesn’t fulfill these criteria is not democratic.

 

The fact, that groups in more than 20 countries on 5 continents joined the international day of action in 2008 and the Global Week of Action in April of this year shows how international this struggle already is.

 

It is up to each group how and for how many days they want to express their protest during the week of action. It can be a smaller or bigger action. But it is important that we coordinate this together.