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EDUCATION

Students’ Union protests against fraternities

Vienna University Students' Union has announced that it will start holding a regular protest rally against the weekly ‘Burschibummel’ - a ritual in which right-wing student fraternity members meet up in front of the university dressed in their traditional outfits.

Published: 19 November 2014 12:16 CET
Students' Union protests against fraternities
Fraternity members outside Vienna University. Photo: APA/Neubauer

Some Burschenschaften are associated with right-wing or far-right ideas, in particular with the wish for a German state encompassing Austria.

Burschenschaften members identify which organisation they belong to by wearing coloured hats, and sashes around their chests.

Student Union representatives called for the Burschibummel and costumes to be banned from the university in October but University rector Heinz W. Engl said there was no legal basis for such a ban.

The Wednesday rallies will be held under the slogan "Burschis out of university and society!" The Union accuses the fraternity members of having "racist, extreme right-wing, homophobic and anti-Semitic ideas".

A group of socialist, green and communist student organisations will hold a demonstration on November 29th against the student fraternity WKR, which holds a controversial right-wing ball every January.

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EDUCATION

Sweden’s Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

Sweden's opposition Social Democrats have called for a total ban on the establishment of new profit-making free schools, in a sign the party may be toughening its policies on profit-making in the welfare sector.

Published: 18 April 2024 16:09 CEST
Sweden's Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

“We want the state to slam on the emergency brakes and bring in a ban on establishing [new schools],” the party’s leader, Magdalena Andersson, said at a press conference.

“We think the Swedish people should be making the decisions on the Swedish school system, and not big school corporations whose main driver is making a profit.” 

Almost a fifth of pupils in Sweden attend one of the country’s 3,900 primary and secondary “free schools”, first introduced in the country in the early 1990s. 

Even though three quarters of the schools are run by private companies on a for-profit basis, they are 100 percent state funded, with schools given money for each pupil. 

This system has come in for criticism in recent years, with profit-making schools blamed for increasing segregation, contributing to declining educational standards and for grade inflation. 

In the run-up to the 2022 election, Andersson called for a ban on the companies being able to distribute profits to their owners in the form of dividends, calling for all profits to be reinvested in the school system.  

READ ALSO: Sweden’s pioneering for-profit ‘free schools’ under fire 

Andersson said that the new ban on establishing free schools could be achieved by extending a law banning the establishment of religious free schools, brought in while they were in power, to cover all free schools. 

“It’s possible to use that legislation as a base and so develop this new law quite rapidly,” Andersson said, adding that this law would be the first step along the way to a total ban on profit-making schools in Sweden. 

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