Students from all over Finland have been protesting against the government’s policies since September. The government plans to cut students’ social security and weaken the status of international students by expanding tuition fees and tightening the requirements for residence permits and citizenship. The proposed policies undermine students’ well-being, their ability to study, and, consequently, the ability of teachers to perform their duties. Unjust immigration policies increase the inequality between citizen and non-citizen employees, which is unacceptable. The proposal to expand tuition fees goes against the ethos of free education and, in reality, amounts to a cut in the funding of higher education institutions. We in the Finnish Association of Academic Researchers support the students’ demands to reverse the cuts in social security, the weakening of the status of the international members of the academic community, and the expansion of tuition fees.
Finnish Association of Academic Researchers