Socialism From Below

The International Socialist Tendency (IST) is a current of revolutionary socialist organisations, based in different countries, which share a political outlook and seek to help each other by exchanging experience and practical support.

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Defend South Korean students struggle against Seoul National University's corporatization

Thursday 26th January 2017

- Stop Victimization of students, Scrap new campus plan

Students in Seoul National University (SNU), South Korea, have been occupying SNU’s main building for over 100 days since October 10, 2016, against a plan to build a campus extension in the city of Siheung.

SNU is a national university regarded as the most elite institution of higher education in Korea. Although a public university, SNU has been run more and more on the principle of profitability ever since its transition to a corporate entity in 2011. Such degradation on the part of an institution considered to be South Korea’s ‘top university’ is in fact representative of the (neoliberal) state of Korean higher education in general.

All of this has been fueled by South Korean president Park Geun-hye’s relentless push for neoliberal restructuring of higher education, but now Park is on the verge of impeachment as the result of a popular ...

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