‘Don’t do it!’ Dozens of people from TU Delft protest against the cutbacks again

About 50 staff members and students joined the demonstration hurriedly organised by the VSSD after the WOinActie pressure group had announced a few days of demonstrations across the country.

Democratic
A little after the start at 13:00, a couple of protesters were still conferring about the route that the walk-out will take. The people who had joined in the meantime were to decide – democratically – if it was to be a noisy or a quiet march. Apart from one person, everyone chose noisy.

After it was decided to create a lot of noise, they were asked to repeat the slogans from a previous walk-out and massive protest on the Malieveld. “Studying is a right, not a privilege”, “Students and employees stand strong together”, and “Without employees there will be no students”, the group shouts. The slogan ‘Stuff your EUR 3,000’ was dropped now that the political coalition will scrap (in Dutch) the long-term study penalty.

Starts moving
The group started moving. A big flag with the TU Delft logo waved at the back of the mass. When the group fell silent, after a minute Vice-Rector Magnificus Tim van der Hagen, present again, egged them on. “Studying is a right, not a privilege” he shouted. The group joined his call.

The mass, under the watchful eye of two security officers, then walked past the Faculties of Applied Sciences, Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Design Engineering to end up at the starting point in front of the Aula.

Whistling
Students and staff members elsewhere in the country also took action on Wednesday. Just like at TU Delft, Tilburg, Utrecht, Groningen and Rotterdam saw walk-outs; in Nijmegen protesters cycled to the municipality; in Enschede and Maastricht there were demonstrations in the city centres; and in Amsterdam the protesters formed a symbolic human chain around the building ‘to protect the university’. Through the protests around the country, staff members again showed that the planned cutbacks on higher education should be swept off the table.

In a statement, the VSSD calls on them to continue doing this. “One billion euros of cutbacks means a cutback of more than EUR 1,000 for every student. That is EUR 1,000 on less education, research subsidies, grants or personnel salaries. This is not an investment in one person, but in future knowledge for everyone. Cutbacks mean less knowledge on strong dikes and less research on new medicines for cancer. Sweeping the long-term study penalty off the table shows what really can change if we speak out together.”