Wageningen students protest

Students of Wageningen University set up tents on their university grounds on 1 October to protest against how the university accommodates its international students.

“We think it is unacceptable that the university treats our international students this way”, George Amoasah from Ghana says on behalf of student organisation WSO. “We pitched these tents because when a disaster happens, often relief tents are put up; we consider the current housing shortage a disaster as well.”

The student organisation conducted a study among international students who, for the second year, are being housed in bungalows at a holiday park in Hoenderloo: “84 percent of the students say that the location has a negative effect on their studies. In addition, they are isolated from the other students in Wageningen”, George says.

Spokesperson for the university Simon Vink admits that the situation is ‘not perfect’. “However, all students have furnished places to live in”, he says, “including all facilities they were promised. It is a temporary solution. A part of the students already found housing in Wageningen; we hope to have offered all students a place to live before Christmas.”

Vink says the problems started when the enrolments of international students doubled compared with the year before. New student apartments are being realised but it is expected that next year students will again be housed in the bungalows. The housing shortage is not only a problem for international students. Dutch students have a hard time finding a place to live as well. Nuffic-Transfer