Defending Access to Affordable Higher Education: Lessons from the Quebec Student Strike

• In Event: The End of Education as a "Public Good"?: Struggles for Public Education in an Era of Market Fundamentalism

Abstract

The 2012 Quebec Student Strike is a case study in the politics of higher education and access. Low tuition in Quebec has historically been linked to the goals of the Quiet Revolution: education was seen as key to the good life, as a lever for both political participation and social advancement. Low tuition--and in some cases free higher education--was understood as a necessary part of democratic culture. So in 2011, when the provincial government proposed to raise tuition by about $500 per year over several years, students walked out of classes and into the streets. When the strike dragged on, the government tried to ban it through a “special law.” Eventually, the strike brought down the governing party, and the new government was forced to repeal the tuition increases (though they have since reneged). In a climate of budget-slashing and diminished expectations for university teachers and students, what can we learn from the strike? In this paper, I introduce the story of the strike for people who don’t know about it, I discuss the political organization of the Quebec student movement, its role in Quebec society, and the differential reception of the strike across Canada and internationally. I conclude with some comments on its relation to other movements, like Occupy Student Debt, and suggest some structural issues activists everywhere will have to confront in the coming years.

Author

• Jonathan Sterne, McGill U