Sunday, March 4, 2012

“Bologna Burns” - 2010 Vienna Protests and Counter Summit


In 2010, when the student movements believed to be ceased for good in the mainstream public, average number of 15.000 students all around the Europe gathered in Vienna on March 11 to protest the tenth year anniversary of what has been known as “the Bologna Process”. On 10-11th of March, in order to assess the Bologna Process for a standard education system, education ministers from 46 countries met in Budapest and in Vienna for “the Extraordinary Anniversary Ministerial Conference”.

It was the time when the students and teachers had occupied a number of universities around Europe and the student movements have been organized in solidarity on national and international levels all around the world. In Vienna, in addition to the protests, the students had organized a counter-summit in the University of Vienna with workshops, open classes and collective discussions about the future and politics of the education in relation to the Bologna Process. The work groups had prepared the action plans for future collaboration.
Around the same time, student groups from Turkey were also organized. They collaborated for the Turkish translation of the common declaration as well as several local demonstrations.
Recently, as a result of the implementation of the Bologna Process in Turkey, various group of students publicized and protested against the reverse outcomes of this process on the Turkish education system: