Belgium students protest against cuts

In The Netherlands students seem to be hard to motivate to get of the couch and start protesting sometimes. In Belgium, however, students march the streets today to show their concern about the cuts in higher education.

Photos on the Facebook page and Twitter of Veto, the university medium in Leuven, show that a big crowd of students protests against the planned cuts today. Before the rally, they handed a letter to the minister of education. They write: “It worries us that you apply this principle of market forces on the accessibility of our higher education. All too often the student is portrayed as a consumer, who heads for a better life with the ‘return on investment’.”

One thing the minister wants, is to raise the entrance fees of universities. Students also fear that programs postpone visitations because of the cuts, and this could endanger the quality of the education. Above all, they are angry that they were not involved in the dialogue about the financial policy.