MONTREAL - Students from six departments at Concordia University have voted to go on strike as of Monday. The school's other departments will release vote results this week.

Meanwhile over the next few days students at Dawson College will decide if they want to join the 120,000-strong student movement.

Students rallied Monday at Rosemont College and in Valleyfield to show their displeasure with planned university tuition hikes.

More large scale protests will happen this week in Drummondville and Sherbrooke.

A rally is planned for Montreal's Victoria Square on March 13, with another on March 18, but the largest demonstration is planned for March 22 in Montreal.

Students opposed to tuition hikes said that whatever paralysis they cause mirrors that which will be inflicted on poor students.

"It will close the door of the universities to a lot of students and we just want to also repeat the same message to the government," said student representative Jeanne Reynolds.

She said that people appear to be supporting their cause.

"And when we are in the street, we see a lot of people just appear and say 'yeah do it.'"

On Thursday a student protest in Quebec City got heated as students knocked over barricades outside the National Assembly and many clashed with police.

Last month, some students blocked rush-hour access to the Jacques Cartier bridge southbound. The student group CLASSE denounced that action.

"It was not an action organized by the coalition so it's not in our plans to block any bridges in the next month," said Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.

He said that the cost of living makes the higher tuition unsustainable for students.

"When you compare the minimum wage with the level of tuition fees then and today. People today have to work twice more to pay that," said Nadeau-Dubois.

Education Minister Line Beauchamp has said that the students have the right to protest and strike as long as they do not break any laws.

Quebec is planning to raise tuition by $325 a year for the next five years.

The end result is that students who currently pay about $2,415 a year for tuition will eventually end up paying more than $4,000, plus university fees, for their education.

That will still be among the lowest tuition fees in the country, where the average nation-wide cost of tuition is $5,138 per year.