All entries for Monday 08 February 2010

February 08, 2010

UCU petition against coming redundancies

Writing about web page http://defendhighereducation.org.uk/?page_id=13

Higher Education is looking fairly grim at the moment. Talking with some colleagues, I'm getting a sense there never was a golden age of employment, it's just one endless struggle. I don't like thinking like that, I prefer to keep imagining forwards. At the same time, the current cumulative budget cuts at Warwick (with science departments ringfenced, as I understand it, so other faculties, like Humanities, are bearing the burden), have been added to by further govt. cuts. Hooray for Lord Peter Mandelson.

This means redundancies, which means either a worse staff:student ratio, or reduced intakes. Which means a drop in income. Which means tuition fee increases are pretty much inevitable, whoever you talk to. Which will look, on paper, like more money for less opportunities. Hence resistance from five unions.

Not that anyone really batted an eyelid when New Labour turned students into customers back in 1998. At the time, while I was working part time in local government, I heard reports that there was an internal 'fail percentage' for tuition fees.

The figures were word of mouth, but from what I remember being told, if 13% of students had refused to pay tuition fees, the government might have scrapped the scheme, or tried alternatives; only about 5-6% paid. These figures are probably wildly wrong, but the point remains: if students refuse to pay fees, the system will fail and a new system will have to be established.

That's just the kind of change management I like thinking about. Not exactly tabula rasa, but enough slate-wiping to mean the next layer on the palimpsest will look somewhat better, at least for a while.

George Ttoouli : 08 Feb 2010 17:00 | Tags: Ucu | Comments (0) | Close comments | Report a problem