Photo story: Vienna streets thick with protesters

Protesters gathered in Vienna Thursday, loudly demonstrating with banners, chants, and even bubbles in the hope that they would be heard by education and science ministers from 46 European countries, who are celebrating the Bologna education reforms ten-year anniversary inside.

The demonstrations, happenings, and blockades lasted well into the night as activists from all over Europe converged on Vienna's Imperial Palace, where the official celebrations were underway.

Cheap teachers for cheap students

Officially, the Bologna Process is all about making academic degrees and study periods compatible, recognized and accepted in each European country.

Unofficially, it has become a byword for something that angry European students are increasingly mobilising against: Cutbacks in university funding, higher tuition fees, one-size-fits-all education, and public universities that are run like private businesses.

From all over Europe

Ministers’ Vienna waltz out of step

As European ministers brush off their dinner jackets for a Budapest-Vienna extravaganza celebrating education reforms, a spate of not-so-good evaluations of the higher education system threaten to spoil all the fun.

A report from the EU Commission, and a lukewarm appraisal by a normally supportive universities lobby group, adds official criticism to the non-official student and staff protests.

Education and science ministers are to meet up in Budapest and Vienna 10-11 March, celebrating ten years of the so-called Bologna process education reforms.

Less money per student

Danish business: Students are spoilt rotten

Danish students hold the Scandinavian record in financial hardship among students, the Danish Student Council says in a press release, with reference to the Eurostudent survey, a comparison of student social and economic conditions. This is surprising, considering that Danish students are generally perceived to be pampered with large student grants.

However, only 44 per cent of Danish students find their funding to be sufficient to cover their expenses. In contrast, half of students from Norway, Finland and Sweden reckon they have sufficient funds.

Students are poor

Only money for cheap champagne

»Not bad. Sippin’ champagne while working!«

Our photographer is visibly pleased to be covering the centennial of The Students’ Union at the University of Copenhagen. However, he is also slightly wrong. The sparkling wine that we are washing down canapés, grissini sticks and cream-cheese-filled tomatoes with, is as a matter of fact not champagne. Mont Michel demi sec is a EUR 11-a-bottle cava – the French original’s cheaper Spanish cousin.

Jobless students, a new 'cognitariat'

»Philosophically, we need a new perspective. We need to work our way towards a state of balance and accept that we cannot have more.«

The Italian scholar Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi’s statement resonates oddly in a time where the dominating political discourse is prescribing economic growth as the cure for the current crisis.

This Wednesday, Erasmus programme is 25 yrs old

25 years ago, the European exchange programme for students, Erasmus, was inaugurated. Since then millions of students have been able to study abroad on its funding.

33 European countries take part in the Erasmus-programme, which has an annual budget of EUR 459 million.

Prominent Danish politician dies in bike race

Jan Trøjborg was only 56 years old. According to officials at the scene, Mr Trøjborg had a heart attack and fell off his bike approximately halfway through the race. He overturned into a ditch, and immediate resuscitation took place. He was then taken by helicopter to Aarhus University Hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival, reports Seven59.dk and other media Sunday.

European students: We can’t afford to live

A large number of European students have been hit so hard by the financial crisis that they don’t have the money to pay their bills.

The economic hardship makes them deeply dissatisfied with their economic situation. This can be seen in a survey by the Eurostudent project which is funded by the German government and the European Commission.

Politicians critical of University cash stash

Danish politicians don't like the idea that universities are accumulating large capital reserves. This is after universities, including the University of Copenhagen, reported large profits on their annual accounts in this and other media.