Chinese students in violent clash with police over fake nursing course
- Footage of incident scrubbed from social media as police statement blames expelled troublemakers
- Protest sparked by revelation studies were for degree in home economics
Angry students clashed with police and security staff at a college in eastern China on the weekend over claims they had been studying for a fake degree.
Most of the photos and videos posted to social media of the disturbance at the Nanjing Institute of Applied Technology have now been removed.
In an online statement on Saturday, Nanjing police blamed the violence on a few students who had sneaked back into the school on Friday after being expelled. They had “stirred up trouble among students, smashing doors and windows”. Two students had sustained leg injuries, according to the police statement.
But the trouble appears to have started with accusations that the institute recruited students through false promises of associate degrees and the qualifications required for nursing.
Instead, the students were shocked to learn, shortly before graduation, that the degrees they had worked so hard to attain were for nothing more than home economics, with a focus on home care and nursing.
The discovery sparked angry protests by students and their parents which were subdued by police.
