ALGERIA: Bologna "source of student unrest"

University students in Algeria continued their unlimited strike as the new term started last week. The secretary general of the left-wing Parti des Travailleurs, claimed the introduction of Bologna process-style reforms was at the root of the crisis.

The student protests broke out nationwide earlier in the year. La Tribune of Algiers said students at the University Alger-2 Bouzaréah had gathered on campus but refused to attend courses, and that "the situation seems to be the same everywhere in the other universities across the country".

The movement threatened to endanger the whole academic year, it said. First semester examinations had been postponed in several areas, raising worries among many students who feared a lost year.

There had been no follow-up from the Ministry of Higher Education and Research to the students' demands, and they condemned a national conference on higher education at the end of March as a "fiasco", reported La Tribune.

Students in Algiers were planning a demonstration for 12 April to keep up pressure on the authorities, but were expecting it to be banned, said the paper.

La Tribune also reported a speech by Louisa Hanoune, secretary-general of the Parti des Travailleurs (PT), who claimed the introduction of reforms based on the Bologna higher education structure was the source of Algerian universities' "major" crisis.

"This new system, passed under cover of the 2008 Act, introduced in the wake of the structural adjustment plan and the agreement of association with the European Union, will open the doors to the multinationals to decide and dictate diplomas in Algeria," she told a PT meeting.

La Tribune said Hanoune regarded the reform, based on three, five and eight years' higher studies and known in French as LMD (licence-master-doctorat), as a danger to the future of Algeria's universities.

She noted the "wish of the state not to disengage itself from universities", but found it 'paradoxical' that the higher education ministry had decided to "impose the LMD system which opens doors to private universities".

She advocated maintaining the 'classic' system alongside the LMD, with eventual adoption of the system that performed better - rather than "the natural extinction of the classic system" which had been discussed at the national conference in March.

* This article is drawn from local media. University World News cannot vouch for the accuracy of the original report.