Thursday, 09. February 2012

:: Home > Panorama > Students, give up the fight!

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
30	31	1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	1	2	3	4

Add your event FREE

Today

Polls

12. 11. 09. - 16:00

Students, give up the fight!

Comment by Thomas Hochwarter

Austria�s students are well advised to end their protests, the sooner the better, and focus on their careers before causing more damage.

It is three weeks now that students have been occupying auditoriums at institutions across the country to make people aware of the bad � and truly appalling - circumstances they are confronted with in their years of higher education.

The point when to say farewell to one�s high-spirited and idealistic ideas and hopes for a more fair, balanced and simply better situation at universities has, however, been reached.

The protesters need to realise their demonstration activities will � apart from hypocritical measures such as preliminary increases of the government�s spending on universities that will have little effect in the long run � lead to no improvement at all.
It is a sad fact that the educational system of Austria is outdated and far from being competitive in international comparisons. Global and European studies showing the quality of education at the country�s universities steadily worsening should not be given too much importance considering important factors like the significantly higher budgets top universities have � but do not brighten the perspective either.

Austrian politicians� announcements of plans to improve the educational system by taking Scandinavian countries as role models are nothing less than hilarious, considering that it has been various government coalitions that have ensured that the overall situation at overcrowded and mostly dilapidated universities has worsened over the decades. Everybody with any realistic views will agree that the situation cannot be improved in a time span of fewer than 20 years.

Student protesters dominating the occupied auditoriums, blocking roads during demonstrations and � currently in a "heated" row with swine flu mass hysteria news � filling newspaper headlines need to realise they are facing three key problems.

The first is that their personal situations are deteriorating simply because of the time spent � wasted? � on demonstrating.

The second is that the way the public regards them and their activities is drastically worsening. The longer occupations of auditoriums continue, the more fierce the opposition in the form of the media like highly influential and best-selling daily Kronen Zeitung will get. They correctly point out soaring costs caused by the need to book venues to hold lectures set to take place at occupied classrooms and auditoriums � not forgetting their traditional habit of calling protesters "leftist anarchist" or the like.

Considering many obscure decisions by political leaders in the past were arguably often made having in mind a newspaper�s policies to ensure there would not be a fall-out with it, one realises how powerful the conservative "Krone" was, is and always will be in Austria.

And the third decisive factor that the demonstrators will eventually have to accept is that calling for free access to higher education on the one hand and complaining about overcrowded lectures and courses is a contradiction. The current state, as pointed out earlier on, is the result of decades of poor political decisions � and caused by last year�s abolition of study fees that had certainly kept the one or the other ambitious person from studying. Many forget in the debate that everybody who could not come up with the fees was exempted from paying them and that most of the countries with top higher education ask students to pay.

So where will all this lead us? The past has shown that a lame compromise that does not help any of those involved in a political or social conflict always stands at the end of every debate � something that is already known as "the Austrian solution" outside this country�s borders. Keep up the good work, beloved Austria�

Austrian Times

Your comment to this article :

(will be approved by an editor before going online)

your name
your location
your message
Not for publication:
your mail
How many vertical lines or which Text (from left to right) do you see in this image:
input for security check

Tag cloud:
education overcrowded idealistic demonstration occupied Austria worsening simply students lectures calling Kronen factors debate activities protests government auditoriums personal universities

Latest News

Set up tax on financial transactions soon, says Katzian
The head of the Association of Private Employees (GPA-djp) has called for a quick introduction of a tax on financial transactions.

P�hringer rejects U-turn on rightist ball
Young Social Democrats (SP�) have appealed to Upper Austrian Governor Josef P�hringer not to attend the Burschenbundball in Linz this Saturday.

FP� under fire after trip to Grozny
The Freedom Party (FP�) has been harshly criticised for meeting with Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.

WKO boss wants pension age hike incentives
Federal Economy Chamber (WKO) President Christoph Leitl has identified attempts to raise the average retirement age as the key issue regarding Austria�s budget.

Woman and child run over in Vienna
A woman and child have died in a road accident in Vienna, Austria. The lorry driver was making a right turn when he drove into a group of pedestrians leaving a 59-year-old and a 12-year-old dead. The mother of the school girl was left with serious injuries.

Schlecker says Austrian jobs are safe
The son of Schlecker founder Anton Schlecker has claimed that the company has no plans to sell its Austrian affiliate.

SP� sees smaller parliament as key signal
The general secretary of the Social Democrats (SP�) has argued his support for a reduction of the size of the parliament.

Austrian food to feature in organic trade fair
Austria is expected to be well represented at next week�s BioFach 2012 international organic trade fair in Nuremberg, Germany. Some 90 companies and organisations from the Austrian organic good sector will feature at the fair from 15 to 18 February.

Brothel for the homeless in Vienna
Homeless people are queueing up for free rooms in an Austrian brothel after owner Peter Laskaris said it would be unfair not to do everything he could during the current cold spell.

Deep-freeze snacks for orangutans in Sch�nbrunn
The lucky orangutans who take up residence in Europe�s oldest zoo have been indulging in a twice weekly take-away. Despite the trees in Sch�nbrunn Zoo in Vienna, Austria now being completely bare the fury friends have fresh branches and leaves delivered twice a week.