As I introduce students in the UK to the joys of online readings through a virtual learning platform, students in Greece protest at the lack of books (yes, paper books …) available in cash-strapped high schools. Because of cut-backs, many schools can’t afford to supply textbooks in the ways in which they have always supplied them. Instead, they’ve turned to photocopies and CDs.

Now normally it would be students who photocopy/burn materials for study and easy exchange. There might be outcries from the authorities about copyright infringement, plagiarism and the like.  The symbolic act of schools doing the same though is not lost on the students in Greece. Their reply – equally symbolic – speaks to the cutbacks but also, perhaps, to the digitisation of their education. So easy to cutback when the digital can be re-produced at almost zero cost.

At the same time those students I introduced to their ‘online reader’ and who are beginning to explore the vast databases of resources available to them at the click of a mouse, (are made to) feel priviledged. I wonder, could we ever imagine a similar reaction to an ever more costly education produced at ever decreasing costs here in the UK?