(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) Dozens of students held a fifth rally in Tirana in opposition to the proposed law on higher education, which they say will make university unaffordable for the poor.
The students gathered on Monday at the campus of the Polytechnic University and then moved toward the offices of parliament in Tirana's Heroes' of the Nation Boulevard, holding banners and chanting the slogan, "the reform will not pass".
Monday's rally was the fifth in a series of protests organized by the For the University movement, a Tirana-based left-wing group that opposes the reform of the higher education system proposed by the centre-left government of Prime Minister Edi Rama.
"At the last rally we marched against the prime minister's office to draw the attention of the public towards the risk posed to the university by the commercialisation and the hike in tariffs, but this clientelistic government would not dare look us in the eye," the movement said in a statement.
"We won't bow down despite the fact the government is turning a deaf ear," it added.
The For the University movement started last year in protest against repeated rises in tuition fees and the government's move to prepare a legal basis for the provision of funds for private universities.
The movement maintains that the new law on higher education erodes academic freedom by putting universities under the control of the government while diverting public funds to private universities and increasing fees for students.
The new law increases the tuition fees in public universities in order to increase the total amount of cash that is available to higher education.
The government denies aiming to interfere in university administration, claiming that the new law will offer equal treatment for all universities whatever their ownership model.
The private higher education sector has boomed in Albania over the last decade but has shown signs of crisis during the last few years, with enrolment levels at private colleges falling.
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