Students and staff demonstrated against proposed government budget cuts at Leiden University and its campus in The Hague on Monday, in the first of several strikes scheduled at universities around the country in the weeks ahead.

Students and lecturers cast aside their books and lecterns, pinned red cards to their jackets, and marched to the Garenmarktplein, a square near the law school, for a series of speeches.

Many told Dutch News they are frustrated about the mixed messages they’ve received from the current government and a lack of specifics about what is and is not on the chopping block. The current government wants to cut €1 billion from spending on higher education, including stop funding grants for young researchers, but the details are still unclear.

“The proposed cuts to higher education are huge, but we’re not entirely sure where those cuts will fall,” Remco Breuker, a professor of Korean studies, said. “I doubt this government knows either, to be honest.”

Hester Be, a master’s student in philosophy and art history, said she is worried about potentially devastating cuts to the university’s language departments.

“We really need to know about the history and cultures of the countries around us,” she said. “While studies like business and law are too big to fail, the language ones are much smaller. It’s easy to try and get rid of those and say it’s fine, but it is not fine.”

A plan by the faculty of humanities to remove its Bachelor’s in Italian programme was withdrawn following an outcry from students and staff, but there are still plans in the works to shut it down in 2026.

One lecturer, who asked to remain anonymous, said the government’s “waffling” about exactly how many millions will be cut from the education budget has made fundamental aspects of running a university a logistical nightmare.

“In terms of procedures, you have to decide if you’re going to cut a programme within a certain cycle,” she said. “For next year, you’d have to decide by June.”

She also said there had been significant declines in pre-enrolments among international students and predicted they could drop by 10% to 20% for the 2025 – 2026 academic year.

Cutting jobs

Meanwhile, other universities including Amsterdam’s VU University are already firing staff due to fears over the impending budgets cuts and other woes.

“In these challenging times, protecting our institutions is not a luxury, it is a dire necessity,” lecturer and director of education Claire Weeda told the crowd. “We have a clear message for the Hague: we will not allow educational institutions to pitted against one another or other sectors such as healthcare.”

Other speakers led the crowd in chants of ‘doe het niet’ [don’t do it] and ‘dit moet stoppen’ [this must stop].

More strikes

The board of Leiden University said in a statement that, while they support the strike, they were unwilling to close for the day. Examinations, PhD ceremonies, and lectures were scheduled as normal.

Today’s strike is the first of seven set to take place at universities around the country that are being organised by the trade unions FNV and AOB along with several student groups.

The next one is set to take place at Utrecht University on 11 March. The final one is scheduled for 10 April at Tilburg University.