#Ockuperauniversitetet: Our education is not for sale - stop the foundations committee

On the 10th of november 2013 thirty students, unemployed, academics and others who are tied to the universities gathered in an open assembly in Lund to discuss the government proposal to make Swedish universities into private foundations. This reform would mean that our universities would be transformed into businesslike entities adapted to compete for research and teaching funds. This would seriously affect the quality, accessibility, and openness of the Swedish universities. Even if this reform recently has been pulled back from parliament a new version is to be presented the coming spring.

We therefore encourage all students in Sweden to gather on the already proclaimed day of action on 14th of november to demand that this coming new committee is to be terminated, and that the foundations reform be scrapped altogether.

We want to use the 14th of november to make a call for open assemblies for students and other people connected to the universities. Take spaces at the universities and use them to organise the resistance. Investigate, discuss, organise, link up with like minded in other locations and identify who your local opposition will be so that we can plan for the coming six months.

We demand from the bosses at our universities - including directors and deans - to boycott the coming committee and cooperate with the obviously illegitimate mandate. The point of a second government committee is beyond any doubt to rephrase the same notions of privatisation that already has been stopped once.

Therefore: Stop this committee and lets start from the beginning. The universities need change, but it has to come from below.

We’ll keep in touch through #ockuperauniversitetet

See you on the 14th of November, and in the spring of 2014! This is just the beginning!

University assembly, Lund November 10th 2013