Tag Archives: National Union of Students

UCU Strikes and 26 March !

 

University and College Union members have been on strike at various days in this month so far. University of Leicester has had members strike on 22nd and 24th of March 2011.

The dispute centres around attempts to raise the retirement age, increase contributions for members and bring an end to the final salary element of the scheme. UCU members in Scotland and Wales went on strike on Thursday 17 March and Friday 18 March, respectively, and their colleagues in Northern Ireland are taking strike action today (Monday). There will be UK-wide action on Thursday 24 March.The union said today that it shared students’ frustrations that the employers were refusing to come back to the negotiating table and that the strike action now looked inevitable. The National Union of Students has written to the employers urging them to join UCU for talks and to try and avoid strike action. Read more information here.

Now, I haven’t found the time to go through the justifications and points of debates in detail. And to be honest, I only decided to write this blog after becoming aware of the amount of traffic with regards to the strike on twitter. I have collated some of them, but you can find them on twitter with the hashtag ucustrike.

One of the top tweets for the day was by a certain Aaron Peters (not Porter chap!) and I quote “Inflation 5.5%. Pay rise 0.3%. Pension cuts >20%. Student fees, up 200%. University economics – Priceless.” 

If those numbers baffle you then it’s about time you looked into what’s going on where! As a wise professor once commented – If higher education has to pay for mistakes of the bankers, something has definitely gone wrong in this world !

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Debt Sentence to Students ?

On Thursday the 9th of December 323 ‘ayes’ led to the law of increasing tuition fees in England to a maximum of £9000 p.a. TO begin with, I am not a UK student, I am an international student and the whole law thing does not affect me, neither my immediate friends, as, this law comes into rule 2013 onwards. But, all  the same it disappoints me. What frustrates me completely is the view of the coalition government as well as the opposition.

The policies in the new system of education would be an ‘improvement’ as compared to the current system. I won’t dwell into complex numbers, but an increase in re-payment threshold from £15,000 to national average salary of £21,000 p.a. is a more practical figure. Part-time students will be treated the same way as full-time students, which is a good idea and a fair one as well. And a couple of more, good ones. What fails me, is why was the coalition in such a hurry to get this through ? The idea, is ill-received by the people, misunderstood by the students and completely hated by the Lib Dem supporters. People’s ‘perception’ to the idea is negative, why wasn’t more done to improve that perception ? It just makes me think this coalition is high-handed in it’s affairs. I might be wrong here, but that’s that. Although, that is my view, some of my English friends are clearly in favour of this system, though it has to be noted they won’t be affected by this as they will be done by the time it kicks in. Yet, it shows those who have dissected the document have come to realise it is not so bad as it is made out to be.

Now the opposition, oh deary – dear, I am lost for words here, because they themselves are lost for words! They oppose the raising of tuition fees to £9000 p.a. but have no concrete alternative solution to manage the funding gap left by the cuts. I understand their point that, Higher Education budget should not be cut by 80%. Which is absolutely true, that is some massive cuts there and what are the University Vice-Chancellors doing ? Their silence is deafening. They’ve got scot free in this coalition-students saga. I feel betrayed, the person that runs my University has quietly agreed to a 80% cut in his budget and agreed to increase fees without a question or fuss about it. Think if the NHS, Police force, etc decided to do that ? These bodies are fighting for every penny being cut, but Universities have clearly betrayed me here! And the opposition, yeah, on them, they support a graduate tax, that’s it ? On what ? What would be the threshold ? What would be the fee increase ? No numbers to back up the leader’s word! Or no words from the leader at all, whichever way you want to take it. But clearly disappointing.

So does this mean it is a Debt Sentence to Students ?

Technically no, because the student debt will not be counted towards any financial judgement in future, which means no modelling would be done taking into account the student debt. It is between the government and student. But, the thing with government is, you give them a finger to hold and they will snatch a hand. Next time and every-time, I expect the coalition government to be clear and not behave high-handedly with any of the policies. For this reason, I will oppose the fee rise, on this very basic point.

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