Vic: Students to shut down Melb Uni administration

AAP General News (Australia)
04-21-2004
Vic: Students to shut down Melb Uni administration

MELBOURNE, April 21 AAP - University of Melbourne students plan to shut down the administration
block as part of their ongoing campaign against a planned 25 per cent fee increase for
most courses.

On April 5, about 200 students staged a rally to disrupt a university council meeting
that eventually approved the increase.

Melbourne University student union member Rebecca Barrigos said students are outraged
at the university council's support for the federal government's higher education policies.

She insisted students would not allow the university to run normally while the threat
of fee increases remained.

"We will be shutting down the administration building because it is where the implementation
process (for fee increases) will actually take place," Ms Barrigos said.

"The council may have voted to fee increases but at every turn and stage of this protest
students will be there to make it impossible."

Ms Barrigos said the university planned to use police to break up the protest and had
pressured staff to fight their way through the blockade to get to work.

A University of Melbourne spokesman could not be contacted.

AAP jrd/it

KEYWORD: RALLY VIC

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