UK Students Protest School Fee Hike
The NY Times reports:
Thousands of students in cities across Britain walked out of classes on Wednesday and marched to protest the government’s plans to cut education spending and steeply increase university tuition. It was the second such protest this month.
The demonstrations were mostly peaceful, but here in London at least eight people, including two police officers, were injured in pockets of violence, and three protesters were arrested on suspicion of committing violent acts and stealing. Some protesters surrounded and vandalized an empty police van, breaking its windows, scrawling graffiti on it and trying to tip it over.
And a group of demonstrators repeatedly tried to break through a police cordon in front of Whitehall, which houses many government buildings, throwing placards, smoke bombs and other projectiles even as officers held them back with night sticks.
In other cities, including Brighton, Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, Sheffield and Warwick, university students — in some cases joined by students from secondary schools who also walked out of class — marched through town centers or tried to occupy university buildings.
Several dozen students occupied part of the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, and there were reports of occupations at other universities.
The demonstrators were angry at government proposals to help reduce the country’s budget deficit by giving less money in direct grants to universities, and allowing the universities in turn to charge tuition of up to $14,400 a year, from the current cap of $5,624.
Much of their fury is directed at the Liberal Democrats, whose party pledged to abolish tuition entirely during the general election campaign this past spring. Now in a coalition government with the Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats are backing the new proposals, saying that British universities need to be able to charge more to remain internationally competitive.
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