Students in front of the university of Freiburg, holding golden letters spelling 'education'. Photo: Hanna Hauck

“Education only for some”, demanded several hundred students in the German city of Freiburg im Breisgau at this year’s international students day. Paper crowns decorated countless heads and some were wearing posh suits and dresses. Pupils, one speaker explained, should not be able to get their Abitur (the German equivalent to the British A-Levels) by passing tests at the end of high school, but only through heritage from their parents.

But what looked like a grotesque gathering of the super-rich, demanding an end to free education for all of Germany’s citizens – and especially for the lower classes – was actually the opposite: German students had organised an ironic demonstration in order to protest against what they say is a failed education policy.

Students claim that education is increasingly dominated by business and the economy. “There is an ecomonisation at schools and universities – especially in the form of the switch to Bachelor and Master programmes and the introduction of tuition fees”, says Jonathan Nowak, a member of the group that organised the protest in the south-west German city with its 550-year old university.

Local Protest

His group belongs to the Bildungsstreik Bündnis, an alliance of regional student protest groups in Germany. Educational policy-making in Germany is decentralised, so decisions about the education system are made by each federal state rather than the parliament in Berlin. Consequently, the student protest is marked by regional movements, too. From Kiel in the north of the country to Konstanz in the south, and from Saarlouis in the west to Cottbus in the east – local protest groups can be found all around the federal republic.

Opposition to education policy-making has been around for several years in Germany, says Jonathan Nowak. It emerged and re-emerged in waves and it’s not only university students that are taking to the streets. Many pupils are protesting, too.

Student protest in front of the theatre in Freiburg, the banner in the front showing Julius Ceasar reads: 'Golden times for education – leadership, tuition fees, competition'. Photo: Hanna Hauck

One of the central criticisms of the student protestors is directed against the introduction of Bachelor and Master programmes and tuition fees. Until recently, students at most German state universities didn’t have to pay any tuition fees. Now some federal states, like Baden-Württemberg, charge their students around 500 Euros per semester. Not a lot – compared to what some UK students currently have to pay for higher education. But Jonathan Nowak believes that the tuition fees might get higher and that students from poor backgrounds will not be able to go to university any more: “Who gets to go to university is increasingly decided by one’s parents’ wallets”, says Nowak.

Many are also sceptical of the new university system, introduced in the mid-2000s. They claim that the structure of Bachelor and Master programmes is too rigid compared to the former Magister system. “Before, it was possible to choose modules more freely. And it was less important, if you passed an exam with a certain grade”, says Nowak. He believes that the old system, when the marks students got during the earlier stages of their time at university didn’t count towards their degree, allowed students to concentrate more on what they learned at university, than on how well they could re-echo it. But now students often only studied for the exams and forget what they learned during the lessons right after the tests.

Students wearing golden crowns and party heads in front of the university library in Freiburg.Photo: Hanna Hauck

Demonstrations and Reactions

So demonstrators in Germany have repeatedly vented their anger in public: In Freiburg they seized the building where the principal’s office is located in 2005. They squatted at the Audimax, the biggest lecture hall of the university, in 2009. And this year, they blocked a high speed train track at Freiburg’s main station with a sit-in – a campaign that was criticised sharply and even got them into trouble with the law. A commentator from a local newspaper, for example, described it as “alarmingly blue-eyed” and dangerous.

But Germany’s student protests have also been marked by humour and creativity: The students marching in Freiburg stayed in character, in Oscar-winning performances, as an elitist group appalled by the idea of giving free education to the less fortunate. “We are the elites, education only for us”, they demanded sarcastically.

Germany will continue to see students taking to the streets. New demonstrations are planned for next year, when Germany’s south-western state of Baden-Württemberg elects a new regional parliament, says Jonathan Nowak.

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How will electoral reform affect the UK? Photo credit: Alan Cleaver

Protesters have described the current electoral system in the UK as “unfair” and have called for proportional representation. The new government has said that it will hold a referendum on electoral reform. However, the alternative that the coalition government proposed is not necessarily a real step away from First-Past-The-Post system.

They had been protesting with purple arm- and headbands, with signs and chants: Take Back Parliament, a coalition of several groups including POWER2010 and Electoral Reform Society, have lobbied for a referendum on electoral reform, following the parliamentary election in the UK last week.

At a protest in front of the Work Foundation on Monday 10 May, one of Take Back Parliament’s members, Guy Aitchison said:

“We are here to say to the Lib Dems as they are walking into the building to hold their crucial meeting on what the future of this country will be: Don’t make a deal without a referendum on proportional representation.”

At first glance they seem to have reached their goal: the UK parliamentary voting system could soon be changed under the new government. As part of their coalition agreement, the Conservatives promised their smaller partner, the Liberal Democrats, to hold a referendum on the so-called First-Past-The-Post system.

It’s a majoritarian electoral system, in which only the candidate with the majority of votes in his or her constituency will become an MP. This makes Britain unique in Western Europe, according to Jonathan Hopkin, senior lecturer in Political Science at the London School of Economics (LSE).

“In Western Europe we are the only country which uses First-Past-The-Post. The nearest thing to that is the system in France, which is also a majoritarian system – but with two rounds of voting,” he said.

If it were up to ‘Take Back Parliament’, Britain should probably join in. Guy Aitchison criticised the First-Past-The-Post system sharply, saying it wasted millions of votes:

“If you don’t vote for the winning candidate in your constituency, then your vote has no influence on the make-up of Parliament,” he said. “Under a fair voting system, all the parties get seats in Parliament according to the votes they receive.”

Pros and Cons

Mr Hopkin agrees that Britain’s current voting system has its weaknesses: “It produces results which are very skewed in favour of some parties and penalise others. The Liberal Democrats, for instance, won around 23% of the vote, but only 57 seats out of 650. They are clearly underrepresented quite sharply. Whereas the Labour party with 29% of the vote – so with just 7% more – won 258 seats. That’s almost five times as many.”

The British electoral system has also received quite a bit of criticism in the foreign media. The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, for example, called it ‘blatantly unjust’.

How does the current electoral system keep parties out? Photo credit: Donald MacLeod

But although big parties tend to get a disproportionately big share of seats under the First-Past-The-Post system, it also has its strengths.

“It’s a very simple system. Voters have no trouble understanding how the system works,” Hopkins said. “You have a ballot paper with a list of candidates in front of you. You choose one and then the candidate with the most crosses against their name wins the election.”

“The other main advantage of this system – if it is an advantage – is that it makes it easier for governments to be formed by one single party. Its tendency to overrepresent some parties makes it more likely that one single party will have a majority in parliament. The purported advantage of that is that it produces strong governments. There is a certain amount of clarity. Voters know what the government said it was going to do and can then call it to account at the end of a parliamentary term”, he adds.

Additional advantages

Others argue that it is very effective in keeping small, potentially radical parties out. Only last year David Cameron – the new Prime Minister – argued against introducing proportional representation in the London Evening Standard, describing it as a “… system that will let in the BNP” – Britain’s far-right, nationalistic party.

However, Jonathan Hopkin points out that it is not completely impossible for a minority party to get into Parliament under the current voting system in the UK. If the BNP managed to concentrate their votes in one district, they could win a seat in the British Parliament, he says.

A small party that managed to do exactly that in this year’s elections were the Greens: With Caroline Lucas, party leader and MP for Brighton Pavilion, Britain’s very first Green Party member got into Parliament.

And Hopkin adds that proportional representation doesn’t automatically allow small parties into Parliament:

“There are various ways in which they can be kept out. In the German system, for example, there is a threshold: You have to win five percent nationally in order to receive any seats at all. And as things stand, the BNP would stand no chance of getting elected”, he says.

Alternative voting systems

Take Back Parliament protested against any concessions on electoral reform from the Lib Dems. Photo credit: Hanna Hauck

But even though the coalition agreement between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives states that they will hold a referendum, it doesn’t necessarily mean that PM Cameron has changed his mind about proportional representation. The choice will be between First-Past-The-Post and the Alternative Vote (AV) – yet another electoral system.

Here voters can rank the candidates in order of preference, Jonathan Hopkin explains.

“Candidates with the fewest votes are eliminated, and second preference votes are distributed to the other candidates until one receives a majority. The advantage of this system is that the winning candidate will at least have a majority of support of some kind. Not necessarily of first preference votes, but of a combination of first, second and third preference votes”, he says.

Still, the Electoral Reform Society, which campaigns for the introduction of the Single Transferable Vote, has argued that this year’s election results wouldn’t have looked much different under AV. It even maintains that “the Alternative Vote is very much like First-Past-The-Post”. The protesters on Monday also made clear what they wanted, when they chanted: “No deal without PR (proportional representation)”. So, it remains questionable, if holding a referendum on introducing AV will satisfy the critics.

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Is European identity fragmented? Photo credit: Hanna Hauck

Every year hundreds of thousands of Europeans go to work, travel, or study in another EU member country. In September 2009, over 300,000 EU citizens were given a National Insurance number in the UK. With no visa requirements, a European citizen only needs a valid ID card or passport to enter the UK. Still, only few people seem to identify themselves with the European Union.

In 2008 Neil Fligstein, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley claimed that only about 13 per cent of Western Europeans regard themselves as Europeans first.

German businesswoman Iris Becker is one of the many people who left her home country to work in another EU member state. In the late 1990s she lived in London for three years and has also worked in Africa and India.

“I feel German in terms of my roots. But I feel just as home in India as in Germany. I feel European when I’m in Spain, Italy or Greece. But in England, I felt very far away from Europe. I was surprised how different England is even though it isn’t far from Germany,” she said.

Travelling in Europe and getting to know people in other EU member states has helped Ms Becker feel closer to her European neighbours.

A new generation of European migrants

Chantal Mairesse works for the Genshagen Foundation, an institution supporting the friendship between France, Germany and Poland, as well as European integration. With the ‘European Dialogue’ project, the foundation wants to counteract shrinking identification with Europe. Ms Mairesse believes that growing migration has an impact on the sense of belonging to the EU amongst its citizens.

“Especially concerning students, one thing is clear,” she said. “A generation is growing up who regards it as natural to spend a part of their studies abroad. It’s even mandatory in some cases. It’s expected of them that they learn about other countries and cultures. This will affect their attitudes towards Europe.”

Tuan Ly and Claudia Lage belong to this generation of students. Both decided to attend university in the UK. Claudia Lage came from Portugal to London and Tuan Ly from Germany – one of the top sending countries in terms of EU student numbers in UK universities according to the UK Council for International Student Affairs. They have since graduated and are now working in the British capital.

But do they feel European?

Still, they wouldn’t necessarily first describe themselves as Europeans. Tuan Ly, who is of East-Asian origin, says he is from Germany but feels neither German, nor Vietnamese or Chinese.

“To me the idea of being European is a very vague one. I wouldn’t know how to clearly define the terms of being European. But if you are a European national, should you be considered European? In that case, I would be”, he said.

A new generation of Europeans are feeling more united by studying abroad. Photo credit: Didier Misson

Claudia Lage, on the other hand, feels very rooted in her Portuguese upbringing: “I spent the first 18 years of my life in Portugal. That obviously has an effect on the way I am and who I am today.”

Living in another European country hasn’t caused her to feel more European, she said. But Claudia Lage, as well as Iris Becker, feel more connected to other member states through the Euro, the EU’s common currency.

Nevertheless, Ms Becker and Tuan Ly both admit that they feel they don’t know enough about the EU. Claudia Lage feels that, although information about EU politics and daily affairs is out there, in many cases citizens have to research the information themselves.

Many EU citizens expressed a similar view in a 2007 Eurobarometer survey carried out on behalf of the European Commission. Last month, the Economist’s European columnist Charlemagne even went so far as to say the UK media held a “fierce hostility (…) towards the European Union”. And as many people tend to get their information through national media, this  probably affects their view on European identity – at least in the UK.

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Even purple animals were chanting at the 'Take Back Parliament' protest. Photo credit: Hanna Hauck

Britain’s so-called “First-past-the-post” electoral system has been called into question by protesters following the general elections last week.

Protesters gathered outside the Work Foundation in London today, where the Liberal Democrats reportedly held a meeting, asking the party not to agree to an offer by either the Conservatives or Labour unless it included a referendum on introducing an electoral system based on proportional representation.

The group called ‘Take Back Parliament’ chanted “Fair votes now” and “No deal without PR (proportional representation)”, calling for what they say is a fairer voting system.

Currently, the so-called ‘first past the post’ system is used in parliamentary elections in the UK. This means that only the candidate who gained the (simple) majority of votes in his or her constituency will represent his electorate in Parliament.

Guy Aitchison of ‘Take Back Parliament’ said millions of votes were lost under this system.

“If you don’t vote for the winning candidate in your constituency, then your vote has no influence on the make-up of Parliament”, he said.

Bigger parties tend to benefit from a simple majority system, as they can secure a big share of seats in the House of Commons. Smaller parties, however, are often left with a small amount of seats, even if they get a substantial amount of votes.

Protesters were marching for a better electoral system in the UK. Photo credit: Hanna Hauck

In last week’s elections in the UK, for example, the Liberal Democrats could secure 23% of the votes, but received only 57 seats. The Conservatives, on the other hand, received 36% of votes and 306 seats, whereas Labour got 29% of votes and 258 seats.

This is why ‘Take Back Parliament’ favours a system based on proportional representation.

“Under a fair voting system all the parties receive seats in Parliament according to the votes they receive”, Guy Aitchison claimed.

However, the BBC pointed out that the first-past-the-post system also has benefits. It is simple and tends to produce results very quickly, as well as clear majorities in Parliament. Also, under the current voting system in the UK each constituency has its “own” representative, whom people can contact about concerns and problems.

Related link:

CNN -  Q&A: The UK political system explained

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The front of a Turkish art cafe in North-East London was turned into an unusual chip shop on Sunday. Paper fish with words written on them hung from a line at the counter. “The next “catch” will be printed at 2.30″ signs above them informed. Customers couldn’t order ordinary fish and chips here, but instead they could order a word from a menu to be printed on a chip board right in front of them. For a pound they could then take it home wrapped in paper. Art to-go in London’s north-east.

The project is called ‘Chip Shop’ and is run by David and Ping* Henningham as part of the London Word Festival. David says he and his wife decided to do screen printing in front of people, so that they can pick the words together with the audience and print them from scratch.

“It came about because we were sitting in a chip shop late one night and we realised that everything you need to make a screen print is pretty much there. You’ve got your UV lamps for killing insects, you’ve got oil for frying food, you’ve got a counter, you’ve got newsprint, there’s a heat cabinet – everything was there”.

The Henninghams own an art and bookmaking collective, the Henningham Family Press in Dalston. This is a district in the London borough of Hackney the Guardian described as “the unlikely owner of Britain’s coolest postcode” in April last year. A few months later the newspaper complained Dalston was “too cool for school. Move here and you’ll be as instantly pigeonholed as if you’d moved to Clapham or Hoxton”.

Marie McPartlin also lives in Dalston. She, Sam Hawkins and Tom Chivers are the directors of the London Word Festival. In March three weeks of events at different venues in London’s East End test the limits of words in performance – including spoken word, literature, music, theatre, film and visual art, says Maire. With the Chip Shop Marie and her colleagues brought the London Word Festival to the Red Art Cafe-Bar in the small Hackney district.

“Red Art is a Turkish cafe. There is a big Turkish community in Dalston. Myself and the Henninghams, we eat here regularly. I recommend Turkish breakfast number eight. It’s my personal favourite”, Marie says and laughs.

She and her colleagues are based in different parts of east London and so are the London Word Festival’s venues. “Maybe we’re just lazy. We don’t like to travel too far. But we’re also quite connected to the artistic community here. A lot of the artists we work with are east London based as well. It’s really vibrant here. There’s lots of interesting venues, lots of interesting work and we liked the idea of creating something where it felt like there was a bit of community behind it.”

The London Word Festival has been running for three years now and is getting more and more attention by the media and the public, says Marie. Sunday’s Chip Shop in Dalston also attracted a number of people. Some ordered a word from the menu. Others, like Anne Black, submitted a new word.

“I picked the word ‘sly’ because I think it’s a funny word and quite short and sweet. I might put the chip board up in my living room or give it too a friend. I’m not quite sure, yet”, Anne says.

She is interested in typography and likes the idea behind this project: “I think it’s a fun idea and a nice way to get people engaged with being playful with words. It’s really accessible and nice to have it in a coffee shop where people are passing by and can just drop in.”

Nia Davies is also fascinated by the Chip Shop: “I like the fact that it really celebrates words. I love words and the way language is used. Giving someone the opportunity to have their word printed on a board to take home really reminds me of the power of words.”

Nia lives in the area and came down to the Red Art Cafe-Bar after having seen an advertisement for the London Word Festival. She says Dalston is an exciting place:

“It’s quite a busy, frenetic place. There are a lot of different communities here and there are also a lot of things going on in terms of art, cinema and music.”

But she also says Dalston is cut off from the rest of London, because the transport situation is not the best at the moment. Soon, however, the East London Line will be completed and will connect Dalston to New Cross, Crystal Palace and West Croyden.

How to get to Dalston:

The buses 243, 149, 67, 76, 38, 277, 30, 56, N76, UL1, and N38 stop at Dalston.

What to do in Dalston:

The Red Art Cafe-Bar with its excellent fresh orange juice and Marie McPartlin’s favourite – the Turkish breakfast number eight – is a great place to eat. Dalston is home to the Vortex Jazz Club and local resident Nia Davies recommends the Passing Clouds.

“It’s an Afro-beat club just down the road. The Haggerston Club, which is in front of Passing Clouds, is really good, too. I love the Arcola Theatre – a little independent theatre. They run some really nice and original productions. And I really like the Rio Cinema, a beautiful 1920s cinema.

Other London Word Festival venues:

Barbican Art Gallery, The Courtyard Theatre, Jamboree, St. Leonard‘s Church, Stoke Newington International Airport, Toynbee Theatre and  Toynbee Studios Arts Bar & Café, Work Dalston

The London Word Festival runs until April 1st.  For more information and tickets see their official website.