Government pays up after student protests over grants

The government of Madagascar has finally started to pay a backlog of five months’ unpaid grants to students, who have called off protests at the University of Antananarivo which involved violent confrontation with police.

Students accepted initial payments covering three of the five months of the academic year so far, with those in years four and five studying for masters degrees in the country’s six universities of Antananarivo, Fianarantsoa, Mahajanga, Toamasina, Toliara and Antsiranana the first to receive them, reported Midi Madagasikara. The higher education ministry also undertook to improve students’ living conditions.

At the beginning of May, police entered the Ankatso campus of the University of Antananarivo where students from the sciences faculty had intensified strike action by blocking access to the campus. During the demonstration, a gendarme was injured during confrontation with protesting students who were throwing stones, reported Midi Madagasikara.

A police representative told L’Express de Madagascar the intervention was carried out to free an officer who had been taken hostage during two days of demonstrations and “beaten up”. Students denied they had intended to hurt the officer, and said some of them had been injured by rubber bullets fired by the police.

As well as non-payment of their grants for the current year, the students also cited grievances over problems linked to their grants for the two preceding years, and were demanding an increase in their benefits to deal with rising inflation, reported L’Express. Other complaints included persistent problems with the water supply.

The students called off their protest action after a meeting with the higher education ministry, which proposed solutions for their demands, reported L’Express. Payment of three months’ grants would start immediately and be completed by 20 June, instead of during July as originally planned, and a calendar of future payments would be drawn up. Infrastructure repairs would be carried out.

The students said that, if the ministry’s promises were not kept, they would go back on their decision, reported L’Express.

This month’s disruption was not the first time students have protested over non-payment of grants (see Related links for previous reports in University World News). — Compiled by Jane Marshall.

This article is drawn from local media. University World News cannot vouch for the accuracy of the original reports.