Canada

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Quebec Premier Pauline Marois (left) and Education Minister Pierre Duchesne arrive at the education summit in Montreal on Monday February 25, 2013. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson

Quebec students who staged a memorable series of protests last spring could see their efforts result in a roughly 80 per cent discount on planned tuition hikes.

The Parti Quebecois government has tabled its plan for tuition increases, a long-awaited development in a political dispute that rocked Quebec last year and was dubbed by students as the Maple Spring.

The plan involves indexing university tuition by three per cent a year, which amounts to about $70 annually. That is sharply lower than the $325 yearly hikes sought by the previous Liberal government, which then adjusted the proposed increases to $254 per year, over seven years.

The planned hikes prompted huge and often rowdy protests, with the PQ siding with the student protesters ahead of last suumer's election campaign.

Premier Pauline Marois then cancelled the Liberal tuition increases after taking power.

The PQ made the indexation announcement on Monday on the first day of a long-awaited education summit in Montreal.

"This proposal strikes us as the fairest one for society," Marois said. "The financial burden for students would remain stable and several measures will be implemented to reduce the impacts, which are already minimal, of the indexation."