Classrooms stand empty across Spain as students join education stoppages

The third day of strikes in the education sector saw thousands of students, teachers and parents take to the streets in protest against government cutbacks and a hike in university fees.

In Valencia, around 2,000 students surrounded the local headquarters of the Popular Party, calling for the resignation of Education Minister José Ignacio Wert. The walk-out, staged by the Spanish Association of Parents of Students (Ceapa), turned corridors and schoolyards into no-go zones.

Thursday's demonstration was the culmination of what Ceapa spokesman José Luis Pazos called "the first strike of mothers and fathers to be called in Spain." The Spanish Students' Association joined the last day of the protest under the slogan "empty the classrooms," and said that adherence to the strike had been 80 percent, a figure cut to 23 percent by the Education Ministry.

In Madrid, EL PAÍS confirmed, the state San Cristóbal high school reported that 85 percent of its students had failed to attend while the Fernando el Católico high school said only "the very youngest" alumni had turned up. In Valencia, the attendance rate at many schools was reported to be 70 percent.

Pazos, who termed government estimates of support "ridiculous," called the cutbacks "a savage attack on the rights of students and their families." The PP spokesman in Congress, Alfonso Alonso, joined Wert in decrying the stoppages as "incomprehensible."

"When I was at school, it was [radical Basque party] Batasuna that organized strikes," Alonso said.