SCHOOL’S OUT

The year was 1968, and cities across the world were burning. In Paris, people took to the streets, occupying factories and universities: at one point, nearly 22 per cent of the population was on strike. Demonstrations followed in Berlin and Rome, as well as in cities across the US, Pakistan, Mexico and Brazil. Police violence, racism, the rights of women, the Vietnam War, an emerging ecological crisis, state repression, authoritarian governments: dissatisfaction had been bubbling for years in innumerable quarters. The riots and protests were a tangible howl of revolt. This was civil unrest on a global scale.

But in London, amid the occupations and marches that were sweeping the rest of the world, another movement was emerging: a self-organised university, free from the constraints and conservative ideals of those elitist, marketised institutes that dominated higher education. Dubbed the ‘Antiuniversity’, the principles of the project were clear: to really learn – and for everybody to get a fair chance at doing so, regardless of their race, gender or socioeconomic background – universities as they currently existed had to be demolished. Because while university was to be a place of learning, in reality, it was simply a conveyor belt. Students were assessed not by how they had grown, how deeply they had