Protest in The Hague against higher education budget cuts; Mayors ask PM to reconsider

Lecturers and students will protest on the Malieveld in The Hague on Monday afternoon against the government’s plans to significantly cut the higher education budgets. Mayors, universities, and universities of applied sciences again appealed to the government to scrap the cuts in an open letter published on Monday.

The Malieveld protest will start at 1:00 p.m. According to ANP, the protest replaces a demonstration that was planned for Utrecht but was canceled at the municipality’s insistence. The municipality had concerns that a pro-Palestine group would “hijack” the protest.

Minister Eppo Bruins of Education is planning to cut 342 million euros in subsidies for education and science. On Monday, the Network of Knowledge Cities, the partnership of universities, universities of applied sciences, and the mayors of the cities they are in, again asked Prime Minister Dick Schoof not to cut back on higher education. They called the planned cuts “at odds with the government’s objective to strengthen our earning capacity and to make our country one of the top 5 most competitive countries in the world again.”

Chairman Floor Vermeulen, also the mayor of Wageningen, called the planned cuts “very unwise” and harmful to the future of the Netherlands.” Vermeulen pointed out that education is essential for figuring out how to solve social problems and innovation. “Companies like to establish themselves in the vicinity of universities and universities of applied sciences because of the availability of talent, facilities, and knowledge,” Vermeulen said, NU.nl reports.

“The cuts threaten to cause education and research facilities to disappear and, in combination with further cuts in secondary vocational education, this will lead to a deterioration in the connection between education and the labor market,” the Network wrote. “This will further weaken the productivity and innovative power of the Netherlands. The position that we have built up, and on which we have worked so hard locally, will be affected.”

Minister Bruins himself also called the cuts “painful.”