Students riot

Students in Malawi’s commercial capital Blantyre fought running battles with riot police on Thursday morning after a protest against a massive hike in university fees turned violent, BBC reported. Students were demonstrating against a proposed rise of 3,000 percent in fees. Scores of angry students from Blantyre Polytechnic, which is part of the University of Malawi, took on riot police following the slow pace of negotiations about the fee increase. After the students threw stones, police replied with batons and tear gas. A number of students were detained, but later released. In his budget, finance minister Mathews Chikaonda announced that university fees would be raised from US $19 to nearly US $580 each semester. But the students argue that with an average monthly wage in Malawi of US $25 most will have no way of raising the money, and forced the university authorities to set up a panel to look into student concerns. But the panel came back to say that it had examined universities in other African countries, and students there pay more and have very tough loan regimes. The chairman of the Polytechnic Student Union Mathews Mtumbuka said with the new term beginning in just one-and-a-half months, students would keep on demonstrating until they got what they wanted. But police said they were prepared for more trouble and would be maintaining a presence on campus.