When We Fight - We Win!

Interview with leader of students’ union in the Spanish state

On 25 November the Spanish government of conservative prime minister Mariano Rajoy under pressure from the mass student strikes of 26 October and 24 November organised by Sindicato de Estudiantes (SE - Students’ Union) scrapped plans to reintroduce ‘revalidation’ exams, first used in Franco’s dictatorship, and a way to discriminate against working class students.

As many students head back to university here, Gareth Bromhall of Socialist Students Wales spoke to Ana Garcia, the general secretary of SE, about this successful student movement and the lessons learned.

We’ve been following closely the student strikes in the Spanish state over the past year, can you tell us about the successes you have had? And the lessons learned?

In reality, last year’s student strikes were only part of a bigger struggle against government attacks to destroy public education. This began in 2012 when Partido Popular (People’s Party - a right-wing party) took office.

Since then we have organised 25 days of student strikes which have been very successful. We are fighting against the cuts to public education and against the government’s new education laws.

These laws are based on the educational model of the Franco dictatorship (1939-75). They mean that people with little money cannot continue to study. We cannot accept such a measure which means that working class youth do not have the right to quality public education.