Dutch School Strikes report
@ | 26.11.2007 13:27 | Social Struggles | World
Word about the demonstrations - against the official 1,040 hours of lessons a year - was spread using MSN and email.
In Amsterdam over a thousand pupils from most of the city centre schools gathered on the Museumplein. News agency ANP said several cars were damaged. Giant chess pieces from the Max Euweplein were thrown at trams and into shops.
Three pupils were arrested in Raamsdonksveer in Noord-Brabant for vandalising a bus. In Eindhoven there were at least two arrests for throwing eggs and fireworks and in Purmerend around 200 pupils blocked roads and threw eggs at police. And in Roosendaal, pupils went on the rampage in the local council offices.
‘Now we have to have 1,040 hours of lessons a year schools are coming up with all sorts of fake lessons to fill in the time,’ one 14-year-old protestor in Amsterdam told DutchNews.nl
Teachers unions say they are unhappy with the protests but support the pupils' cause.
Government efforts to make sure schools meet the 1,040 hour legal obligation has led to ‘panic football’ in schools, a spokesman said. Ministers have said they will fine schools that don't hit the target.
The official union for school pupils was aware of the call but dismissed Friday's protests as ineffective. The union is planning a protest for next week to coincide with a parliamentary debate on the issue.
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Additions
More strikes and trouble Monday 26th across Holland
26.11.2007 15:21
Amsterdamn students gather
Cops use water cannon to disperse school students in Amsterdam
AMSTERDAM - atthe Museum Square in Amsterdam, between thousand and 1500 school students met to demonstrate against 1040. The police force has carried out at least 15 arrests. Two cops wounded. At the concert bldg. demonstrating schoolboys impede the public movements. The mobile riot cops carries out charges. Esther Tienstra, political secretary of the groenLinks youth organisation calls for the young people to protest peacefully. This request does not find a sympathetic ear however. Groups of school students causing trouble, breaking car windows, throw fireworks and rubbish at police. Water cannon is used on protestors.
AMERSFOORT - dozens of school children demonstrate against the obligatory standard of 1040 hours and pressure of workload. Protestors disrupt train times and stop trains.
AALSMEER: Sixty school students demonstrated, one person was arrested.
ALKMAAR - approximately thee hundred schoolboys have protested Monday morning on the Canada square in Alkmaar against 1040 the hour standard. The students threw eggs and fire works
THE HAGUE - two hundred students of several schools in The Hague protested Monday on the outside court in The Hague. Students had briefly bombarded the House of Commons with eggs. Shortly after 13.00 two police constables dispersed the students of the entrance of Binnenhof square by horse. The schoolboys kept fairly quietly, but some of them reacted to the cops. Eggs and a stinkbomb was thrown
PANNINGEN - a demonstration of approximately 250 school students. The schoolboys had walked out from the lessons of the Boijecollege in Panningen and went to the Town Hall. There alderman Janssen was addressed by a delegation of twelve students.
HAARLEM - hundreds of school students protest against 1040-urennorm. At 13.00 800 students had gathered on the large market in Haarlem. Activists threw bread(?) at the Town Hall. Ten arrests were made. The students spontaneously decided to protest because they had not participated last Friday during the nationwide walk-outs
LEEUWARDEN - Hundreds of middle- school students went between 11.00 and 13.00 to several places in Friesland
HARLINGEN: 600 School students demonstrate and later pelted the Town Hall with eggs, fruit and fire work.
Tony Pancake
More photos Amsterdam student and cops
26.11.2007 16:25
Cops use horses ato split crowd and make arrest
Another arrested student
More police 'action'n
Video of police attack on schoolstudents with water cannon
http://www.at5.nl/nieuwsartikel.asp?newsid=31145 http://www.at5.nl/nieuwsartikel.asp?newsid=31144
Tony Pancake