University Fees for on-line Lectures

[Kastanien]

Latest this morning(sorry if it is already on here, I checked and could not see a thread)
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-52506283

Just wondering how those of you with DC due to start (or return to Uni) in the Autumn feel about full tuition fees for on-line learning?
I feel there should be a reduction as the teaching is not the same on-line as face to face.

Are you telling the government Sue?

Do you not remember the protests 10 years ago when this was mooted? Yes - unis have told the government. Time and time again, through their own contacts, MPs, select committees, unions, various sector body representations. We get review after review after review. HERA, Augar, Nurse, Pearce. And here we still are, with 80% of our income coming from fees, which we're not allowed in the case of UG courses to change, or even reduce now for next year even if we wanted to.

Welcome to HE - the most regulated 'free market' in the country.

You'll struggle to find an academic who thinks fees are a good idea, I think.

My question though was what are individuals doing about it?

I dunno, do you think we should go on strike again?

But honestly, this is farcical now. With each new scenario you've come up with, you've managed to make it a way to say we're all rubbish. Now you're conflating 'universities' with 'the academic staff who work in them', like we all take 9 k off each new undergrad and pocket it or something. That's how the places we work at are funded, and have been since before I entered the profession, in fact. You're also conflating 'universities' with 'the Tory government'.

Do you think dental receptionists should be 'doing something about' the fact that dentistry isn't free any more?

We have now reached a point in this discussion where even if I was personally handwriting out all my students' set texts and delivering them by hand to their houses whilst also sorting out their broadband and also giving them back their fees and also campaigning every day about fees (instead of like, doing my job), you'd still think you had some kind of 'gotcha' in your pocket.

Well, the strikes weren't to benefit students were they? Have university staff taken industrial action over academic provision of student fees?

Have nurses even taken strike action over PFI?

'academic provision of student fees', I'm not sure what you mean?

Just...honestly, I think whatever replies you get now you're going to think you've got some other trick up your sleeve, and if now the only thing I could do is get in a time machine and not let the Tories introduce the 9K fees, I think it's all got a bit ridiculous.

No, I think people working in institutions have an obligation to speak out if those institutions are failing.

There are very real issues going on and I'm not seeing them addressed anywhere.

Healthcare students who require clinical hours in order to register are still paying for tuition. So, eg, a 2nd year student nurse will have had their clinical placements cancelled but the click is still counting down. So, they are still technically proceeding through their second year and will enter the third year in September but, as it stands, at the end of the third year won't be able to qualify and register as a registered nurse because they won't have fulfilled clinical hours. Currently, they haven't been told how this will be resolved and yet they are still being made to pay fees. How is that acceptable?

** https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/5058/Brownes-recommendations-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-for-affordable-higher-educationn*
Academice marched side by side with NUS members in the protests. The views of most academics is reflected in the union article at the time.

You may be aware Thatcher banned striking for causes that didn't directly impact ones own employment, so formal strike action to support students was and remains illegal.

Currently, they haven't been told how this will be resolved and yet they are still being made to pay fees.

Unis need to get agreement from the professional bodies before this can be resolved. It will be resolved - nurses aren't going to finish next year and not be qualified, but the NMC needs to agree how this is dealt with before those resolutions can be passed to the university and student.

It will be resolved - nurses aren't going to finish next year and not be qualified,

Well, clinical hours will need to be made up somehow and it's difficult to see how that can happen when training has been essentially suspended for the time being.

Although if the current PGCE cohort at a university I know of is anything not go by, maybe they will just pass them all and then let future employers sort it out.

I agree with the principle of fees as they make people value what they are getting
sadly the level has been set so high that students have been told they are owed something
AND
the interest system on the Loan system is offensive.

Elsewhere in Europe, University Education is seen as a greater good and largely funded through the tax system

In the UK its covertly done that way as around 60% of student loans will never be repaid.

When I was at Uni I knew that history students subsidised my labs
twas ever thus

so long as turkeys vote for Christmas we are stuck with a stupid system

but the SLTs at Unis need to change the top to bottom mindset to make staff realise that looking after current students
even those with irritating parents
is in their interests

Well it's up to the regulatory bodies, not the universities. They may decide that the number of clinical hours can be reduced - but it's not in the universities' gift to resolve that one. Not sure what else I can say.

but the SLTs at Unis need to change the top to bottom mindset to make staff realise that looking after current students
even those with irritating parents
is in their interests

Don't worry everyone is super aware of that one - someone down thread already pointed out the £££ that now gets spent on en suite residences, shiny catering etc. Cos that's what students demand.

I don’t think that’s what students demand , most students I know don’t care too much . It’s what the conference trade demands

Pease
How can the conference trade be dictating the hall specs when the students are on 51 week lets and have their stuff there all summer ?

Now you're conflating 'universities' with 'the academic staff who work in them', like we all take 9 k off each new undergrad and pocket it or something

Well, i had a look at salaries across the sector in 2015/16 and was amazed at the salaries of academic and senior management 60-80k p.a. Higher in and around London.
www.timeshighereducation.com/sites/default/files/breaking_news_files/uk_university_salaries_2015-16.pdf

I was always under the impression it was an underpaid sector but perhaps that was pre tuition fees?

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras

2nd year AHC students have been asked if they'd like to volunteer to work in the NHS on a maximum 60/40 split, but you stil pay 100% of the fee!
The area you may work in the NHS will not automatically be in the area of study, so an OT could be on the wards for this 60%.

No detail as to what happens if you don't volunteer, we got this via email from the Uni a few weeks ago and now it has just gone into a black hole, emails not answered... no one in her cohort knows what the XXXX is happening in regard to placement hours, from Sept... oh and few volunteered either!

Haha Jas I'm a senior lecturer and I earn much, much less than that figure you've just quoted.
Not to mention that universities are the second highest user of casual workers ( zero hour contracts, short term contacts) so many lecturers don't even have job security!

And when I say I earn less than the figure quoted I mean much less than the lower figure.....
This is despite having a degree, MA, PhD, a teaching qualification and a number of professional qualifications.

@jasjas1973

I’m on 1/4 of the lower figure pa. I spend every university holiday (Christmas, Easter, Summer) doing temporary jobs as I’m not paid during that time. Similarly to SueEllen I’ve got many academic, professional and teaching qualifications as well as decades of experience in the field I prepare my students for work in.

Most teaching staff are on far less than the lower figure you’ve quoted. There’s also a MASSIVE gender pay gap in Academia. I’d be extremely shocked if any female lecturer at my place of work is on £60k per annum. I think £46k is about the highest for a female Head of Department at my uni. We have an appallingly low number of women at the helm in terms of faculty etc. Generally, we are put on several part-time contracts. Especially if we are of childbearing or child rearing age.

If it wasn’t clear, I don’t expect to be paid when I’m not working and eventually hope to get a salaried position where I’m paid for those lonnnnngggg breaks in teaching. As it stands, I have to mark and do admin, pastoral care in those breaks which I am not paid for whilst also working temp jobs.

It’s not as “cushy a number” as the public are often led to believe.

'academic and senior management' rolls quite a range of salaries in! Normal SLs are not earning 60K or anything like it.