Update | Thousands of students plan week-long classroom boycott in push for democracy

Students from at least 11 tertiary education institutions are planning to boycott classes for a week and rally outside the government headquarters later this month, student leaders said yesterday, as they urged Hongkongers to stick together to push for democracy.

The exact location, duration and time of the strike has not been finalised, but would likely take place in the middle or at the end of this month, said Alex Chow Yong-kang, general secretary of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, which represents college students.

Joshua Wong Chi-fung, convenor of Scholarism, which represents secondary school pupils, said it would be more difficult for them to boycott classes. He said he expected their turnout to be a "three-digit number".

On Tuesday Wong and other Scholarism activists began handing out flyers to promote a one-day class boycott among secondary pupils. They will invite pupils who join the boycott to a mass "democracy class" in a public square on the day.  

Chow said he did not believe the government would immediately back down and give Hong Kong universal suffrage when the strikes took place. "But the purpose is to wake up people from across the city. Even the students have come out, and so the rest of Hongkongers should stand united as well," he said on RTHK radio yesterday.

Chow said students from each of the institutions had set up a taskforce to explore how to organise a boycott and would meet this weekend.