A student strike occurs when students enrolled at a teaching institution such as a school, college or university refuse to go to class. This form of strike action is often used as a negotiating tactic in order to put pressure on the governing body of the university, particularly in countries where education is free, and the government cannot afford to have a student cohort miss an entire year. This can cause an overload of students in one academic term and the absence of an entire class in the following term.
In the West, student strikes date to the early days of universities in the Middle Ages, with one of the earliest and most significant being the University of Paris strike of 1229, which lasted 2 years and yielded significant concessions. In more recent times, significant strikes occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s – the French May 1968 uprisings, began as a series of student strikes. The largest student strike in American history occurred in May and June 1970, in the aftermath of the American invasion of Cambodia and the killings of student protesters at Kent State University in Ohio. An estimated four million students at more than 450 universities, colleges and high schools participated in the Student Strike of 1970.[1][2]