Yesterday two busloads of University of Belize students took their fight to the university's board room in Belmopan, to rail against what they feel will be a takeover of their Freetown Road campus and a hike in registration fees. After that, UB Chairman Louis Zabenah promised to meet with students at forum today at the technical College campus, ground zero for the war against the IT-VET takeover. He didn't show up, but President Corinth Morter-Lewis did. We'll tell you what she said in a few, but our story begins on the streets of the city. Keith Swift has the story.

Keith Swift Reporting,
"Technical stays - raise must go" was one of the chants shouted through the streets during a protest this afternoon by a respectably sized crowd of University of Belize students. The students began the afternoon under the tent at ground zero for the war, the Belize Technical College campus.

Student #1,
"The future of our engineering department presently it seems that they have come into negotiations with the government and IT-VET to amalgamate the two programs, to bring them together, the engineering department and IT-VET, they are two separate entities."

Questions like those landed on the podium of UB President Dr. Corinth Morter-Lewis who came out swinging. Her first point was that as a former student and principal, no one knows technical like she does - no one.

Dr. Corinth Morter-Lewis,
"I can tell you things about the Belize Technical College that nobody else here can tell you about. I have been here when it was taught not by Belizeans, but by people from Germany, from Scotland, from England. The Belize Technical High School, which is what it was then. I don't have to apologize for the Belize Technical College. I know the caliber of people it has put out. Many of them are all over Belize. I walk around many times and have students, who are grandfathers and grandmothers, telling me that they do remember me, I used to teach them. So Belize Technical College, nobody here can tell me anything about this place."

But Dr. Morter-Lewis told the student that is all in the pass and the future is with IT-VET.

Dr. Corinth Morter-Lewis,
"Positions have been taken by the students, they don't want the IT-VET, at least that's what I'm hearing, and that you do not want the IT-Vet project on your campus. To resolve that one becomes a difficult problem."

A problem because Dr. Morter-Lewis says negotiations are already under way and there is no turning back which simply unacceptable to lead activist - Moses Sulph.

Moses Sulph, Student Activist
"We will not give up the campus."

[President Leaving Forum]

The President did leave - allegedly because of a prior commitment - but the forum didn't end there. For Sulph it was just starting.

Moses Sulph,
"Why is government willing to borrow $40 million for IT-VET when they don't want to make any attempt to develop the engineering faculty."

Strong rhetoric which Sulph and other student government leaders used to lead students in a pre-planned street protest.

Students Chanting: 'Education empowers a nation, keep education affordable.'

Moses Sulph,
"Why take it to the streets? Well because we need the nation to understand what our problem is and also that we are standing up for education, to keep the cost affordable and also not to get rid of one of our main assets in this country, which is the Technical College campus."

Student #2,
"We all have a common goal which is to demonstrate to show to the government and everybody else that we are the future and without being able to afford education then how will we ever reach the key. So we need to get ahead. We can't get ahead with this situation. We need a campus where we can have a state of peace where we can actually study and be successful but unfortunately with this business which is going on right now, there is nowhere we can ever get ahead in life."

Student #3,
"We need to keep our campus and second of all we need to keep it affordable. That is basically why we are out here."

And Sulph says don't be fooled by the numbers - this is just the start.

Moses Sulph,
"We weren't organized for all the campus to come together at this point. We did not see the necessity for that at this point. We are doing everything in a stage and this is the first stage of protestation so definitely whenever there is another stage of protestation, you will see definitely much more people. We will bring students from all the different campuses together. Basically this is just the Technical Campus students giving support for Technical and also with other students from different places but when we need it, we will summon all students from all different campuses, bus them in if we need to, in order to get our message out that we will not accept an increase in fees at anytime or we will not give away the Technical Compound."

A hard line indeed - which they walked 60 minutes in the sun to get across.

We notes the crowd was respectable because there are only 120 students attending the school of engineering. Dr. Louis Zabenah reportedly did not attend because of personal reasons. Again, as we reported last night, government has agreed to pay the registration increase for the January semester which will amount to a little over half a million dollars. As for IT-VET, a Memorandum of Understanding is being finalized and construction should start shortly.