Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Action against growing influence of commercerce in education

EU Students (Translation) | 09.11.2001 10:59

At the 8th of November, one day before the WTO summit starts, the direct action group of Eurodusnie did an action against the sell out of public education.

Action against growing influence of commercerce in education
Action against growing influence of commercerce in education


November 8th 2001: Action against growing influence of commercerce in education

Free Translation from Dutch into English (I tried to give my best English)

One day before the WTO-summit in Qatar. Action in the Dutch city of Leiden against commercial influences of education. „Our university is not for sale“. A banner with these words was hanging on a building of the state universitybuilding in Groningen (RuG-Netherlands). About 40 students united in the „concerned students collectiv“ tried to get attention from the public opinion by occupying the universitybuilding in order to let the world know that corporate influence on education is growing rapidly. In their Pressrelease they wrote: „ We are not far away from the Rabobank university where Shell is teaching us about developing third world countries and where Philip Morris is doing research for Lungcancer. At the 8th of November, one day before the WTO summit starts, the direct action group of Eurodusnie did an action against the sell out of public education. In Qatar the development of a new round of liberalisation on the agenda. Today Eurodusnie`s direct action group took out commercial billboards of the university canteen, they did is while it was full of people with broad daylight. These billboards are the symbol of the increasing influence of commerce in education. The billboards where brought to the Amsterdam airport „Schiphol“ where they wher handed over to a company called "Worldwide bagage service" with the question of they could fly the billboards to Qatar because we don`t want them on our university.

Our demands are:
-no advertising at schools and universities
-no sponsored teachers and students
-no sponsored research
-free education for all (including illegal immigrants)

Background information

Market-able

The VVD (Dutch liberal party) minister Jorritsma has said that the universities should be jugded by their market-ableness (they mean: judged on the fact how competitive they are in a free market of education, translator). The minister of education made similar comments. Their comments fit in the framework of the bologna declaration of the European ministers of education and the General agreement of Trade in Services (GATS) of the WTO: commercialising of education as part of the privatisation of the public sector. By the public transport we already saw it: International companies have the opportunity of taking over the former public sector like public transporcompanies. Jorritsma says that because the private companies have to make profit they can provide this services much more efficient. That is exactly what`s waiting for public education. By the GATS-treaty public education will become a trade-article. European schools and universities have to transform so they can be made competitive for the American competitors. That is the reason why in the Bologna-declaration is agreed to transform the universitiy-system to one single sytem in all European countries (not only in the EU). That is the reason for the Bachelor-Master structure (BA/MA). With this system the university can easylier compete with eachother. When people like Jorritsma get what they want, only universities that are fit for the market and useful for private companies will be supported. Education and research will get even less independent.

Undemocratic

National legislation and educationpolicies are less important than free trade. When the rules of the GATS-treaty are not obliged than it will be possible for private companies to sue a state at the WTO and the WTO can sentence this state with for instance trade-sanctions. This could mean for instance that the financing policy of public education in the Netherlands has to be changed or even abolished so education-companies and schools and universities from other countries can provide their services on the same conditions. This could lead to higher fees for students from schools and universities. That will be followed by an increasing accessibility of education and social exclution. The „topmasters“ of Minister Hermans are already an example of market-able financed educationsystems: the discussion is about the question if a further learning program after a university study should be paid by the student or the company where he or she is working for.

Policy without a vision

With reason students- and schoolstudentunions in Europa and other places are afraid that the GATS-treaty will undermine the accessibility of public education. GATS comes in through the backdoor of a trade-reaty from wich the consequences are not realy clear. The biggest problem is that politicians who run the show are often not even aware wich influence GATS on their department will have. The treaty is handled out by the ministers of trade, not by the minister of education. After the European Studentunion ESIB spoke about GATS on a conference in Stockholm, several officials of the education-minister came to them to ask what GATS is all about and if they knew more. In the researchproject „Learning without borders“ from the OCW where the main line is drawn for the Dutch education policy for the next 10 years the lack of kowledge is getting clearer. The internationalisation is being described as just another trend for wich studyfinancing for students, accessibility and securing the quality of education can be fixed in a short term programm. There is no vision about accessible and for the whole society important edducation on an international market that is moving towards commerce and privatisation.

WTO in Qatar

Local schoolstudents and students have to show that they won`t accept the growing influence of commercial intrests that are supported by the Bolgna-declaration and the GATS-treaty. Some of them have showed their protests on the streets of Prague, Nice and Genoa. But a lot of schoolstudents and students didn`t even hear about GATS and they ofcourse also don`t know anything about the consequences for their daily education. That what the EU ministers and the EU commissioner for trade, Pascal Lamy, are agreeing with in the ongoing GATS-negotiations is will be in the principle a dead end street: because of a very dangerous and undemocratic clause in the treaty it`s not possible for WTO-members to change anything in the treaty once it`s being signed (So if the educationmister or members of parliament want to change the treaty..it won`t be possible, the treaty is a tradetreaty wich mus not be ratified by the parliament, translator). It`s very important that issues of this nature are being taken democraticly and after a public debate. Otherwise democracy is being undermined and the influence of corporate-power of the transnational corporations who`s intrests are very good represented in the GATS-treaty will grow. From the 9th untill the 13th of November the fourth ministerial WTO-conference will take place in Qatar. Their goal is to start a new ambitious negociationround in order to establish more liberalisation. When they succeed they will change our future to a future of maximum profits and commerce on an international level. Liberalisation and free trade is the sellout of everything wich is important for a righteous society. Also because of this new round accessible education for all is in the line of fire.

More information about the EU-wide Schoolstudents- and studentprotests:

Website:
 http://int-protest-action.tripod.com/

Mailinglist:
 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/international-pupil-and-studentactions

Website of Eurodusnie:
 http://eurodusnie.nl

EU Students (Translation)
- Homepage: http://int-protest-action.tripod.com

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech