Sasha Kimpel in Berlin AFTER YEARS of depoliticisation of school students in Germany and the depressing outcome of the student struggles in 1993 and 1995-96, we have the broadest and deepest movement in ten years.
This has taken place against a background of cuts and plans to make university education more elitist and more tailored to the requirements of business.
Two thirds of German students have to work. Only 15 per cent still get some financial help from the state. 900,000 student places are officially financed. Budget cuts in recent years have led to worse study conditions, with larger cuts still to come.
The aim of reforms proposed by the government is deregulation, in the guise of efficiency and autonomy. Access to university will be more difficult. A limitation on student numbers and the introduction of selection procedures, together with tuition fees of about 1000 Deutschmarks a semester (£720 a year).
Another aim is to attract private capital in return for more direct influence on rescarch and course content. The "lean university" is to be ruled by managers, with less possibility for the students to influence their education.
A division of students into groups, one of which gets a basic, non-scientific education, and another which "can" do science, is planned.
The result would be a deterioration of the standard of education and an elitist conception of university as being for the socially privileged students, with far fewer working class students than even at present. Germany is doing what other European countries have already done - this is the overall direction of EU education policy.
The latest wave of protests started with an occupation by new students in the little university town of Giessen, angry that they could not participate in an overcrowded class with 600 students. They occupied the student council building to protest against the miserable conditions in which more and more students in Germany have to study and live.
Over the next few weeks more universities also went on strike. At the beginning of December there were about 170. Week by week the movement grew and became stronger.
The main demands were:
* The right to free education for everyone * An end to the cuts and money for a better university * Democratisation of the universities * Scrap the new High School Bill which includes student fees Other issues included immigrant students, women students and language courses.
During the strike lots of working groups on different subjects, both education issues and also wider social issues, were formed. Local, regional and two national demonstrations were organised, attracting between 5,000 and 11,000 people.
At the start, most students thought that the main thing was to appeal to the public, the government or the bosses and just to explain that they are doing the wrong thing. Such illusions were increasingly dispelled, even when the government kept claiming solidarity with the students and said that their reforms would make everything better.
Activists were increasingly politicised and radicalised. The national demo on December 18 in Bonn showed that the mood in the movement was getting more political and angry about the general political situation in Germany, and looking for political alternatives to the government's economic policies and theories on education.
The argument for the need to have a common movement with workers, the unemployed and excluded against cuts and neoliberal policies (attacks on democratic and social rights and making the educadon systen more elitist) gained ground.
In many cities the gymnasia school students joined student strikes and mobilisations.
Trade unions officially supported the students; some even mobilised on a very small scale for demos.
In parliament only the PDS expressed passive support for the movement. All the other parties have national or regional responsibility for implementing government education policy.
The movement itself had no democratically elected leadership in universi ties, cities and on a national level. Discussion of organisational tasks often took precedence over the political discussion of how to go forward and what to do.
A national meeting of proclaimed leaders of the UN strike failed to formulate common demands or to agree the next steps for the movement and how to implement these.
After nearly 6 weeks of protest by students and pupils, the movement collapsed - at its political peak. The activists were exhausted. They realised that it would be a long term fight, and the lack of support beyond the student movement led to demoralisation.
The level of organisation of the strike was inconsistent. A lot of universities supported the strike but were unable to carry it out throughout all their sites. Students also came under pressure to complete and pass semesters (and gain credits towards degrees) .
Even when there was no betrayal of the protest by "leaders", there were missed opportunities, as the fighting leadership lacked a clear orientation.
What now?
The movement was an encouraging sign that young people are no longer accepting the deterioration of their social situation and prospects. There are clear signs of a repoliticisation with the search for alternatives and the willingness to organise.
None of the major demands were fulfilled, but further mobilisation is possible in 1998, though on a new basis. Revolutionaries should be in the forefront.