students

Film student Angela Henderson was collecting her thoughts, resting on the patio of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts on a recent sunny afternoon while listening to music on her headphones as she stared into the sky. Henderson was taking a short break after applying for dozens of Hollywood jobs.

The 22-year-old cinema and media studies student graduates in December, and she’s admittedly “a little freaked out” by what awaits her.

“What if one day, I am one of those people that ends up losing a job?” Henderson said.

She isn’t wrong to wonder.

Partly fueled by media consolidation, waves of layoffs have swept across the industry, bringing job cuts to Netflix, Walt Disney and Warner Bros., recently acquired by Paramount-Skydance.

Productions keep leaving the state and artificial intelligence and vertical video are reshaping what gets made and who makes it.

Yet aspiring actors, screenwriters and directors, many of them film school students like Henderson, are still making the pilgrimage to Los Angeles. The Times spoke with some of these students about how they plan to navigate today’s Hollywood. Most are clear-eyed about the odds, and none of them are planning to quit.

“Some of us can see a lot of doom and gloom,” said Miranda Banks, a professor of film, television and media studies at Loyola Marymount University. “But this generation has their eye on the power of human creativity in a way that I’m not sure any of us in other generations have been so attuned to.”

She thinks many of her students have a good chance at making it if they are “savvy and strategic” about where the industry is headed.

“We’ve had a lot of unprecedented years, a lot of years with strange things that have impacted the industry and made things particularly challenging,” Banks added. “That has happened before. It will continue to happen.”

Gianna Jordano, a freshman film and television production major at Loyola Marymount University, is photographed on a film stage inside the Wil and Mary Jane Von der Ahe Communication Arts Building, which houses LMU’s School of Film and Television.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Gianna Jordano, Loyola Marymount University, 19

When Gianna Jordano first applied to film schools, she said she knew the industry was in a bit of a “slump stage.” With fewer movies being made, the impact of AI and an overall lack of jobs, the Huntington Beach native said she was nervous about pursuing a career in the film business.

But after seeing movies like “Primetime,” “The Odyssey” and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” in theaters this year, Jordano is more inspired than ever.

“My friends and I’ve all been watching all of these new movies, and we’re saying, ‘This is what we want to do. This is what I want to pursue in the future and be able to achieve,’” said the film and TV production major. “I feel less nervous now.”

After graduation, she plans to work her way up to directing — even if that means taking other jobs such as teaching and working in a restaurant to achieve her dream.

“The more open-minded you are, and the more willing you are to work, the easier it is to find a job, even if you’re maybe not always on the best set or doing the job that you want to do,” Jordano said.

Teddy Abularach, left, and Mitch Linebaugh, both 18, visit the Herbert E. Farmer Motion Picture Technology Collection at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Teddy Abularach and Mitch Linebaugh, USC, 18

Freshman screenwriting majors Teddy Abularach and Mitch Linebaugh had recently moved to L.A. from New York City and Des Moines, respectively, to pursue careers in screenwriting.

Despite shared concerns about landing jobs after graduation, both are determined to succeed in the business.
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“We’re just gonna have to work that much harder to get a job. I’m already preparing myself for a brutal postgrad life,” Abularach said. “I wouldn’t be happy if I were in another job. … Even if there’s a small chance for me to succeed and be able to pay the bills and do something that I love, it’s worth it.”

They aren’t blind to the challenges of being a screenwriter.

But Linebaugh said he worries that “everything is just going to become so uniform,” as the industry seems to lean too heavily on algorithms and audiences’ preferences.

“I don’t think people in this industry will let that happen — everyone from the writers to even the executives,” Linebaugh said. “I know the stereotype is that they like to keep their jobs, but I remain hopeful that they want to make good movies too.”

The two 18-year-olds moved to the city with every intention of staying, even as the industry’s local footprint hollows out.

Linebaugh said he’s going to give screenwriting his all, and if it doesn’t work out, he will consider graduate school or entertainment law.

Abularach said there’s no “plan B outside of entertainment.”

He’s already preparing for the life.

“I still can’t get the stereotype out of my head of the L.A. writer who does all the things in L.A., like taking pitch meetings, getting coffee and being in writers’ rooms,” added Abularach.

UCLA film student Tomas Carrasco, center, has makeup applied by UCLA student Song Diqiong, right, before performing in his short film, “D-Facer, Reality Break,” on the set inside Melnitz Hall on the UCLA campus. He wrote, produced, starred in and directed his short film.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Tomas Carrasco, UCLA, 25

In a hallway lined with movie posters in UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television, Tomas Carrasco was in the middle of preparing to shoot his senior capstone film: a surreal horror comedy. The senior, who’s on the director’s track of UCLA’s film and television program, said he isn’t “afraid necessarily about where the industry’s heading because there’s always going to be space for artists.”

Growing up in the San Fernando Valley, Carrasco was always fascinated by moviemaking. His father worked as a soap opera editor and would sometimes bring him to set, where he learned to love the “feeling of being around people making stuff.”

He started his film education at Santa Monica College, where he took every film class offered. Now, he has his sights set on production design.

For all his artistic leanings, he said he’s well aware that movies are products that need to make money. Because of that, he sees more of the industry turning toward technology instead of taking art-centered risks.

“I see the mergers that are happening and all the AI stuff sucks. I don’t like it,” Carrasco said. “But I still have to come into class every day and do my homework. I’m thinking about where the industry is heading, but it takes up as much space as a movie idea.”

As he prepares for an uncertain future, Carrasco plans to keep working at his family’s Northridge cafe, Mate Conmigo, where he can pursue his creative ambitions while maintaining a stable job.

“I do want it as a career path, and I don’t want to be naive,” he said. “But you have to kind of be naive. You have to be delusional about wanting to have a career in the arts.”

USC film student Angela Henderson, 22, stands next to a photo of director Orson Welles at the Herbert E. Farmer Motion Picture Technology Collection at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Angela Henderson, USC, 22

For Henderson, part of the job-induced anxiety is simple math.

“Unfortunately, it’s so hard to be able to separate myself from it,” she said. “There are hundreds of people in film programs here who all want to have the same jobs and careers.”

Raised in Eagle Rock by two musician parents, Henderson always had the world of entertainment within reach. At 10, she took up acting and started doing theater and commercials. She began college at UC Berkeley, where she realized she didn’t want to be only in front of the camera, but also to study the medium from behind it. She transferred to USC with dreams of following filmmakers like Greta Gerwig, who got their start in writing and directing their own projects.

If it takes a while for Henderson to break into the industry, so be it. She said she’s open to any kind of job, including assistant work and food service.

But Henderson said her generation of filmmakers doesn’t feel discouraged, so much as eager to incite change. They’re largely tired, she said, of watching Hollywood “recycle the same material over and over again,” and want to bring new stories to the table.

“It does feel like we’re on the verge of something new. There’s a breakthrough that’s about to happen,” Henderson said. “With all the verticals happening, and the AI slop stuff happening on social media, there’s also like this huge renaissance in indie movies … there’s still this hope that there’s something new that’s going to come.”

The family of Henry Nowak have said the trauma of learning he had been murdered was made worse by watching police footage of officers handcuffing him as he lay dying.

They told ITV their “world has changed twice”, first when they were told he had died, and again when they watched the body-worn camera video.

His killer, Vickrum Digwa, falsely told police Henry had racially abused him, and officers handcuffed the student as he repeatedly said he had been stabbed.

His father Mark, stepmother Katie, mother Lucy and sister Olivia were speaking to ITV for the documentary Dear Henry: Our Fight For Justice.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has announced an independent review into the murder, led by former lord chancellor Alex Chalk, which will look at “any missed opportunities to intervene”.

Henry, 18, was stabbed five times as he walked home from a night out with friends from his football team in Southampton on 3 December 2025.

Digwa, 23, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 21 years.

It took officers another 24 hours to identify Henry’s body and tell his family.

“I jumped out of bed and I saw the police car on our driveway,” said Katie.

“One of the police officers was holding his hat in his hand, and I just knew straight away that something horrific had happened.”

She said Mark fell to his knees when he heard the news.

“He let out a cry that I’ll never forget,” she said.

“I just remember saying ‘it’s Henry’ and breaking down in tears,” Mark said. “It’s just unbelievable pain.”

Aleksandar Vucic, who has shaped Serbia’s political life for more than a decade, has lost snap parliamentary elections to a student-led movement that led protests against him for almost two years.

After a heated race, Vucic conceded defeat to the Student List in Sunday’s elections, which saw voter turnout reach its highest level in more than 30 years.

“It is clear that we have lost these elections,” the leader of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) told supporters after a sample of votes showed his electoral list was expected to win 105 seats in Serbia’s 250-member parliament, compared with 135 to 140 for the Student List.

The student movement emerged after 16 people were killed when a train station canopy collapsed in the city of Novi Sad on November 1, 2024.

The youth-led protests grew into a broader wave of social unrest and evolved into the Student List political platform, which promised to tackle corruption, depoliticise public institutions and restore citizens’ rights.

During the election campaign, the movement was led by Ilija Srdanovic, a professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Novi Sad.

Vucic referred to the demonstrators, who included university professors, doctors and workers, as “blockaders” and accused them of seeking to destabilise Serbia.

A former ultranationalist, Vucic cultivated an image of a pragmatic leader who maintained ties with the European Union, Russia and China as well as, increasingly, with Israel in recent years.

Born in Belgrade in 1970, the nearly 2-metre-tall (6.5ft-tall) Vucic graduated from the University of Belgrade’s faculty of law. He entered politics in 1993, joining the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party led by Vojislav Seselj.

His political record during the 1990s was marked by nationalist rhetoric. One of his most remembered statements came in Serbia’s parliament in July 1995, nine days after the Srebrenica genocide: “Kill one Serb, and we will kill 100 Muslims.” Vucic made the comments during a debate on possible NATO strikes against positions held by the Army of Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Vucic’s political mentor at the time, Seselj, was sentenced in 2018 to 10 years in prison by the Appeals Chamber of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals for persecution, deportation and forcible transfer of non-Serbs during the wars in the Balkans in the 1990s.

Aleksandar Seselj, the son of Vojislav Seselj, was on Vucic’s electoral list in Sunday’s elections.

After a split within the Serbian Radical Party, Vucic and Tomislav Nikolic founded the SNS in 2008. The new party sought to move closer to mainstream European politics.

Safeta Bisevac, a Serbian journalist who has long followed Vucic’s political career, believes he was initially less popular than Nikolic, who appeared closer to common citizens.

“Vucic lagged far behind in popularity at the time and was essentially the organiser of the newly formed party,” Bisevac told Al Jazeera.

In 2012, the SNS came to power promising to fight corruption, organised crime and abuses committed under previous governments.

One of the most prominent cases was the December 2012 arrest of businessman Miroslav Miskovic and his son Marko on suspicion of financial irregularities and tax evasion. After years of legal proceedings, both were acquitted and the state paid them compensation.

Bisevac said the results of the fight against corruption remained modest while the authorities expanded their control over institutions, the media and political life.

Vucic served as first deputy prime minister from 2012 to 2014 before ascending to the post of prime minister in 2014. Three years later, he became president of Serbia and won re-election in 2022. His term was due to run until 2027.

Under pressure from the student-led protests, he resigned in September and called early elections. Although the Serbian presidency is constitutionally limited, Vucic has retained a dominant influence over his party and state policy.

“He made many promises and fulfilled few of them, but in the meantime, he established almost complete control over the state apparatus,” Bisevac said.

Economic growth and the debate over living standards

The Serbian economy has expanded significantly since Vucic took Serbia’s political centre stage in 2012. Unemployment dropped from 26 percent to 8 to 9 percent while nominal gross domestic product nearly tripled, reaching about 90 billion euros ($101bn), according to official data cited by the Reuters news agency.

Annual foreign direct investment inflows rose from about 800 million euros ($896m) in 2012 to a record 5.2 billion euros ($5.8bn) in 2024.

A network of modern motorways has also been built.

However, rising wages have not necessarily translated into a proportional improvement in living standards. The rising cost of living and public debt remain important elements of the debate over the government’s economic record.

Political scientist Dusko Radosavljevic said “the students simply gave a voice to the justified anger of citizens.”

Speaking to Al Jazeera about Vucic’s policies, Radosavljevic said the past decade was characterised by “systematic pressure and the destruction of social institutions”.

“State intelligence services have spent less time on their actual duties and more time monitoring political opponents while critical thinking has been pushed out of the public media,” Radosavljevic said.

Caracas, October 22, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Students from the Venezuelan Experimental University of the Arts (UNEARTE) have staged multiple demonstrations in recent days to press for solutions to infrastructural and administrative issues.

Students from the UNEARTE branch in Maracay, Aragua State, blocked a major intersection on Tuesday to demand “dignified” studying conditions.

“We are staging a peaceful demonstration to demand improvements to our academic conditions,” student José Pérez told local reporters. “We do not have our own campus, and the facilities are inadequate for the artistic areas we are studying.”

Protesters held billboards and banners calling for a “dignified campus.” UNEARTE’s Maracay education programs function in different rented spaces, which students have complained are in deteriorating condition.

The Maracay demonstration followed a number of protests and sit-ins at UNEARTE’s main campus in Caracas. Students denounced that multiple university installations are shut down or in a state of disrepair. The Modest Bor center, which houses UNEARTE’s music program, has been partially closed for several years.

In addition, students decried that UNEARTE centers’ cafeterias have been shuttered for months, while many have additional grievances including inoperative bathrooms and software issues that  left many students unable to properly register for classes. 

In response to the protests, Venezuelan authorities vowed to address the concerns raised by students. UNEARTE Rector Ignacio Barreto approached students during a demonstration and promised that the registration process would start over.

The Ministry of Culture, which is responsible for UNEARTE alongside the Ministry of Higher Education, held an assembly with all university personnel and announced the creation of working groups with student representatives in several areas.

“This commission, apart from listening to the students and the authorities, should have a weekly plan that can be supervised,” Culture Minister Alejandro López told press. “Accountability before the students is key.”

López, Barreto and other officials were seen inspecting several university facilities last week. The minister pledged to address issues of running water, internet connectivity, and transportation in the near term.

UNEARTE was created by former President Hugo Chávez in 2008, bringing together several educational institutes dedicated to the arts with the aim of advancing a popular and anti-colonial pedagogical approach. It offers degrees in music, dance, film, theater, photography, and plastic arts.

The protests over UNEARTE’s disrepair and deficient conditions coincided with the Venezuelan government’s launch of the José Antonio Abreu Music University. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez headlined the inauguration ceremony earlier this month.

The new public university will have its state-of-the-art campus in the traditionally middle-class southwestern Caracas parish of El Paraíso, including three concert halls and a research center. It will also have 18 regional branches, with a maximum enrolment capacity of around 3,500 students.

Other Venezuelan universities have likewise seen student demonstrations in recent days. In the “Dr. Humberto Fernández-Morán” National Sciences University, students held a protest and an assembly on Monday over what they characterized as inadequate transportation.

The campus is located in Los Teques, some 25 kilometers outside Caracas, and was formally inaugurated in December 2024. Though the university promised to provide transportation, students have complained that the assigned buses are unreliable and have insufficient capacity.

Higher education trade unions have also been at the forefront of regular labor protests in recent months. Venezuelan working-class organizations have called for non-wage bonuses to be converted to salaries and for the restoration of collective bargaining agreements.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Philadelphia, USA.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider outlawing school diversity policies that limit Asian American students at magnet programs and selective high schools.

Three years ago, the court ruled that Harvard and other universities may not discriminate on whom they admit based on the race of their applicants. Evidence in that case showed that Asian applicants with very high test scores were often turned down.

But the justices have been divided over admissions rules for highly selective high schools in Boston, New York and Fairfax County, Va., as well as magnet programs for gifted middle school students.

In most instances, judges have said school officials may use “race-neutral” policies to achieve racial diversity. For example, giving an automatic admission to the top 5% of the students in all of a big city’s high schools or its middle schools could achieve greater racial and ethnic diversity.

But the court’s conservatives, led by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito, have condemned such policies as thinly disguised racial discrimination.

Magnet programs exist across the country, including in California and Los Angeles, and were conceived as a form of voluntary integration — a way to get white students to attend the same schools as nonwhite students, without having to resort to forced busing.

The idea was that a special school program would be attractive enough to serve as a “magnet” for white students to enroll at a school they might not otherwise attend. A mix of white and nonwhite students was seen as a benefit to the nonwhite students, because white students would be sharing the fate of the nonwhite students.

Asian students were frequently part of that original equation on the nonwhite side of the ledger and counted with other students classified as nonwhite, such as Black or Latino students. But in terms of student achievement, Asian students have performed more like white students, frequently surpassing white students academically.

One subset of magnet schools requires a selective admissions process, and these are at the center of the current dispute.

The court agreed to hear an appeal from parents in Montgomery County, Md., who were upset by a sharp drop in Asian students at its four magnet schools for gifted students.

For a decade, the school board had been troubled that fewer than 15% of the students at its magnet schools were Black or Latino, even though they made up about half of the student population.

In contrast, Asian students were less than 15% of the county’s student population but made up about half of the enrolees at the magnet programs.

After several years of debate, school officials dropped the use of a countywide competitive test and chose top performing students at all of its middle schools using a lottery.

That prompted a lawsuit that reached the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Fairfax County in northern Virginia had adopted a somewhat similar policy for the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology. A federal judge ruled for Asian parents and said their students had been deprived of a “level playing field” in competing for admission.

But the 4th Circuit, by a 2-1 vote, disagreed and said Asian American students were still winning more seats than their percentage of the school population.

The Assn. for Education Fairness, the parents group in Montgomery County, lost for the same reason in the 4th Circuit. The number of admitted Asian students had declined, but their percentage remained well above their share of school population.

They appealed and urged the Supreme Court to rule on their case and to clarify the law.

“School districts across the country have overhauled admissions criteria for competitive public schools after concluding that existing systems produced undesirable racial enrollment patterns,” they said.

They said the court should end this type of racial discrimination against Asian students.

However, a longtime champion of admissions policies that rely on social and economic fairness said he hoped the court would side with Montgomery County.

“The Supreme Court has long disfavored racial preferences and pointed to race-neutral programs that look at factors like socioeconomic disadvantage as the right way to do affirmative action,” said Richard D. Kahlenberg, director of the American Identity Project at the Progressive Policy Institute.

He said the Maryland school board followed that rule.

“It essentially provided an admissions break to students based not on race, but on the economic disadvantage of the elementary school they attended. The question now opened is whether the court will stand by precedent or move the goal posts. Is the court opposed to racial preferences, or to racial diversity itself?”

Los Angeles Unified, the nation’s second-largest school system, has an extensive magnet system, with 66 whole-school magnets and 268 magnet centers within a larger campus.

At this point, many of the magnets provide no discernible integration benefit and are viewed instead as inducements for any student to enroll. Many magnets are nearly all students of color because few white students apply.

A few schools, however, have more applicants than spaces, and the district relies on “the Magnet Priority Point System and the need to maintain a racially balanced enrollment, and by available space.”

Parents must mark one federally recognized race or ethnicity on the application, or it won’t be processed. A family gets points, for example, if a student applied unsuccessfully for a magnet in the past.

In L.A. Unified, 53 schools are designated for students rated as “gifted,” and there are four campuses with programs for highly gifted students, typically identified by a professional evaluator.

Available recent data for the highly gifted program at North Hollywood High indicated that the largest percentage of students, about 38%, were Asian. Overall, the district’s enrollment is about 3.5% Asian.

The justices will hear arguments in the case early next year.

Savage reported from Washington and Blume from Los Angeles.

Judge fines government for failing to fund universities as protests over Milei’s cuts turn violent.

“This cannot go on!” students shout during an assembly in the middle of the central hall of the University of Buenos Aires Exact and Natural Sciences building.

It is part of Argentina’s prestigious public university system.

The faculty’s central hall is covered with dozens of banners protesting President Javier Milei’s spending cuts. Students have called an assembly to announce the occupation of the university, a traditional form of protest in Argentina meant to raise public awareness and pressure the government.

They say they will take over the building for a day. Many students and professors here are concerned about the impact of Milei’s austerity policies on public universities and say the future of free higher education is at risk.

“Our best professors are leaving en masse. With salaries that cannot cover their basic needs, they are leaving for private universities,” Emiliano Gato, a physics student who is part of the group, told Al Jazeera.

“I dream of doing research and teaching at the public University of Buenos Aires. It’s a prestigious school. But now, with this austerity plan, I don’t know what will happen.”

Public universities in Argentina have become a major battleground of Milei’s austerity plan. Students and professors are protesting the lack of funding and the erosion of salaries, which they say is a major threat to the country’s public education.

Milei is implementing one of the harshest austerity plans in Argentina’s history.

Since taking office in 2023, he has laid off thousands of state employees, shut down ministries, reduced subsidies and cut government-funded programmes. The measures were meant to fight high inflation, which was a major problem in Argentina. Almost three years later, inflation has fallen to around 2 percent a month. Milei says his plan is going well.

“Argentina is growing at a remarkable pace. We have now recorded 27 consecutive months of sustained growth, and today the country is expanding at four times its historical rate. This growth is being felt across almost every sector of the economy,” said Milei during a recent visit to Washington.

Ripple effects

But not everyone agrees. His plan is also having a profound impact on public education, welfare plans for people with disabilities, pensioners and others who depend on state support. The opposition has tried to block many of Milei’s reforms.

Last year, Congress overturned presidential vetoes and approved two laws, one increasing funding for public universities and another declaring a disability emergency. But Milei’s government has refused to implement them, arguing that Congress failed to identify how they would be financed.

A federal judge has now begun fining the government 100,000 pesos (around $70) a day for failing to implement parts of the financing law, which requires Milei’s government to restore university salaries and student scholarships lost to inflation, regularly update budgets and provide funding for research, hospitals and infrastructure.

And that’s why thousands of people took to the streets on Thursday to demand that the government implement it. All around Buenos Aires, long columns of people blocked the centre of the city as they called for a general strike. Although the protest was meant to be peaceful, it soon turned violent. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets as protesters threw rocks.

The plaza in front of Congress resembled a battleground. At least 25 people were detained, and several others were injured, including members of the security forces.

Maria Teresa de Jesus is a professor in the University of Buenos Aires chemistry department. She says she makes around $700 a month and it has become difficult to make ends meet. “I have come to this protest as a last resort. I am professor. I love teaching, doing research. I shouldn’t be here,” she told Al Jazeera. “Public education is crucial in this country, to make education accessible to all. And the government is ignoring it.”

Many in Argentina continue to support Milei’s economic plan. They are hoping the government’s plan to exploit the country’s vast natural resources will pay off and translate into more jobs, higher wages and improved living standards.

But many others have stopped believing and are prepared to raise the stakes. They accuse Milei’s government of protecting the interests of a privileged few while asking the rest of the country to bear the cost of his economic plan.

French Football Federation’s ethics body calls on fans to keep politics out of stadiums amid student protests.

The ethics body of the French football federation is urging fans to stay neutral amid the nationwide student protests that are drawing international attention.

The police response to the largely peaceful demonstrations has prompted widespread accusations of brutality, and football fans in stadiums have expressed their support for students.

Officers have made extensive use of tear gas and batons to disperse crowds. More than 6,600 arrests were made nationwide as of last week, an unusually high number for a French protest movement.

A police tear gas grenade shattered a 14-year-old’s jaw and many of his teeth, while a 15-year-old lost a hand in an incident involving a stun grenade. Other teenagers have also suffered life-changing injuries blamed on police weaponry during protests.

During a Ligue 1 match between Lens and Lyon last week, the home fans unfurled a banner calling for an end to the “disproportionate and systematic police violence,” according to the National Council for Football Ethics (CNE).

The CNE also noted that at the half-hour mark of the match between PSG and Le Mans, supporters displayed a banner reading: “Your militias repress; our youth resists.”

The ethics body said in a statement that it was easy to understand why young supporters, who are often students, might take advantage of matches to publicly express their support for the demonstrators.

However, it added that the principle of political neutrality is “enshrined” in the laws of sport, both internationally through the Olympic Charter and FIFA statutes, and at a national level.

The CNE recalled that any speech or display of a political, ideological, religious or trade union nature are prohibited, as is the wearing of symbols or clothing that expresses political, philosophical, religious or trade union affiliation.

“Sport should unite, not divide,” it said. “The National Council for Football Ethics therefore calls on all supporters, who are an integral part of the football family, to uphold the principle of neutrality in all circumstances.

“The aim is to ensure that the stadium does not become a political or trade union battleground, but remains a place of celebration and shared enjoyment centred on sport.”

Student protests against poor conditions in Albania’s education system have continued for a third day in the capital, Tirana, as Prime Minister Edi Rama insists he will not resign.

Demonstrators have called on Rama to quit in often violent protests since Tuesday. They have set fire to several buildings across the city, including the prime minister’s office, ministry buildings and branches of several banks.

Dozens of police officers and protesters have been injured amid attempts to disperse the crowds using water cannon and tear gas.

“What you are seeing is the boiling point of months of suppressed grievances,” Albanian journalist Arlis Alikaj told Al Jazeera.

Students have complained for months about the high cost of education and their limited employment prospects after graduation.

Afrim Krasniqi, a professor and researcher at the Institute for Political Studies in Tirana, told Al Jazeera that students and young people protested peacefully for nearly three months, “yet their demands were largely ignored, while the government often responded with discrediting campaigns rather than genuine dialogue”.

He added that the current escalation reflects “frustration not only with the government itself, but also with the lack of institutional accountability and responsiveness.”

The protests represent one of the most serious waves of public discontent directed at Rama, who won a fourth term last May but has since faced public anger over corruption allegations involving senior officials.

The unrest in Tirana coincides with a broader wave of student protests across Europe. In France, secondary school students have spent weeks protesting and blockading schools, demanding more teachers and better learning facilities. They have warned that deteriorating school buildings and overcrowded classrooms are undermining the quality of education.

Protests against Rama’s government began a few months ago, fuelled by plans to build a luxury resort along Albania’s largely unspoilt southern coast. Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son in law, is involved in the project.

Local media reported that the protests spread from Tirana to universities in Elbasan and Shkoder on Wednesday.

Albania is among the economies of the Western Balkans seeking to catch up with European living standards. However, the gap with the European Union average remains evident in purchasing power, wages, productivity and the quality of public services. Despite economic progress, the country continues to face challenges including emigration, regional inequalities and the need for stronger institutions and the rule of law.

After Montenegro, Albania stands out as one of the countries that has made the most progress towards full EU membership. However, behind the optimistic political rhetoric, frustration is growing among citizens over the slow pace of European integration and the lack of tangible improvements in their daily lives.

While opposition groups seek to support the demonstrators and capitalise on the moment to strengthen their own position, Alikaj said the protests are being driven by young people and students demanding systemic change.

On Thursday, Rama – who has been PM since 2013 – told Reuters, “As for calls for my resignation, governments change through democratic elections. Last year, we had elections, not a revolution.”

Sokol Lleshi, a lecturer at the University of New York Tirana specialising in political science and international relations, said social change is more likely to emerge from a broader coalition of different social groups, rather than mass mobilisation limited to university and secondary school students.

“Elite defection from the current ruling political elite could enable the institutional means to channel societal dissatisfaction or resentment into political and policy changes. Yet, the current student protest does not seem to replicate the December 2018 mass movement of university students and its effects”, Lleshi said.

The student protests that shook Albania in December 2018 began over rising education costs and forced Rama to dismiss eight ministers as part of a cabinet reshuffle and announce a package of measures known as the “Pact for the University”.

But some of the students’ demands remained unmet.

Lleshi drew some more positive conclusions from Albania’s past experience of social unrest.

Albanian society is polarised and unequal, “with hollowed intermediary political institutions”, he said, but the legacy of unrest and political confrontation will serve as a “warning to avoid destabilisation”, he said.