At least 10,000 Dutch students and other university staff gathered in The Hague, the government city of the Netherlands to protest against the planned budget cuts for higher education. A few riots and clashes happened which were quickly suppressed by the police without injuries.
According to local media, this demonstration is the biggest in the last 20 years. More than 1,000 local students marched from The Haagse Hogeschool to the Malieveld close to the Dutch ministry of finance, where they met thousands of others from across the country. Students wore protest banners with slogans such as "We are not going to pay for the economical crisis!" and "I am your future!"
"We think these cuts in our education is really wrong. It's a short term solutions for money, but in long turn it will hurt our people." Falko Evers, the chairman of students union of the Haagse Hogeschool, who are also one of the leaders of the demonstration, told Xinhua.
The cutting plan proposed that students who cannot finish their education in the given time, for each extra year, should pay a fine equals to 3,000 euros. The university will also pay 3,000 euros for each of these slow student. This plan is expected to result in around 370 million euro savings for the government.
The demonstrators said this is the most serious cutting on higher education since 1980s in Holland.
Some 1,000 professors from universities all over Holland also joined the demonstration in their full academic garb.
Police had taken extra security measures because of rumors that "radicals" were planning to disrupt the protests. But late in the afternoon, the demonstration passed off quietly and there had been no extreme activities.