F inalienable year students affected by marking boycott

[fUNNYfACE36]

How is your final year student being affected?
Dd(dutham) will graduate on the planned date with a transcript of grades so far ,but not receive a classification until October.

DD at Cambridge studying a humanities subject. Been told to prepare for exams on the basis that they will go ahead, but complete uncertainty about if and when they will get marked. Frankly I think this is taking industrial action too far, and I am sympathetic to the lecturers' cause. She has no idea whether she will still be able to fake up her grad scheme place if she doesn't get a graded degree. She won't be alone in this and it will adversely impact long term for those affected.

Pass with transcript. If any piece hasn't been handed in, it'll be a fail so they've had to complete their final dissertations/essays with uncertainty as to whether they'll ever be read and marked. Some student had their foreign language oral cancelled at DD's uni. DD has been in touch with Vice President who says they are working out how to proceed and don't want a Degree coming out of that uni to be undervalued - no confirmation of marking though!

Obviously I don't see every article in the news, but I've a few students at Edinburgh and one in Cambridge have been interviewed by the BBC/local news, so I think others will follow (if they haven't already).

What?? How have I missed this?

How can it be refused to be marked if they have paid?

Because lecturers are at the end of their tether. Complain to govt and management if you want your money back.

I don't think the direct punishment of customers is the answer.

My DS is at Manchester. TBH, he has no idea what the impact might be. Exams are starting next week and graduations are going ahead in July. It will be interesting to find out. Luckily he's waiting a year before starting a graduate job. He'll be doing a filler job in the meantime.

Law firms want your marks in evey module in every year from year 1 on their applications so even that process for those having to fill in those applications for summer exams before October will be in a bit of a mess due to the lecturers' actions. May be we can ensure their pay cannot be calculated even for the weeks they are working between now and next year and their pay comes 6 months late to them - sounds a fair balance compared to the problems they are causing students paying £9250 a year. There is a group legal action for older cases against universities. https://studentgroupclaim.co.uk/

I do sympathise with the lecturers, but students have already paid for a fair assessment of their work. Many unis are still trying to sort this out, but when you have your DD on the phone in tears as she's under the impression her dissertation and final essays may never be read and she'll have very little on her transcript (did year abroad which doesn't count towards marks), it's no joke after four years of work. Has been in touch with VC and advice is basically to way and see, no reassurance.

Lecturers at my uni will be paid only 33% of their wage for the days they don't strike.

People do forget that the student fees pay for a lot more than just lecturers. There are a whole lot of other staff that make a university run smoothly.

Quite frankly i think lecturers should be treated the same as they are treating students...let them stress whether they will be paid and able to afford their mortgage...let then worry that their future credit score will be affected for the next 6 years....selfish behavior against the poor students who also had to deal with the awful algorithm...

Fortunately my dds uni doesn't have a big membership to that union(they have decent values) but if her work was not being marked i would ensure that karma prevailed equally to the stress and final detriment caused to my dd.

Sad individuals affecting the kids that have no say in the matter but are the ones whose future is affected.

To any lecturers on this forum not marking ...i hope you never sleep at night again!!

A plea to the lecturers
Do your job
This cohort of young people have suffered enough

Why are they at the end of their tether?
What can the government do for lecturers?
University staff get very good salary and lots of annual leave.
What's the problem?

Loss of wage value, part time contracts, more students to tutor, assess, care for pastorally, supervise etc, which if we do it seriously means it takes longer than there are hours in the day, massive increase in students with severe mental health problems, with lecturers having to pick up pieces, computers that barely work with insistence all materials be available 6 weeks in advance online in muktipkeppke formats, plus recordings for afterwards with captioning etc etc and no resource to aid that, all year teaching and supervision, while also being mandated to apply for grants which takes weeks of work, and to research, and do service to the sector, eg externally examining or sitting on subject benchmarking panels. And I could go on and on, and it is simply impossible. My university has lost half its staff, who will not be replaced by anyone, because of uni debts, and so we must do double the teaching while recruiting more understands, with half the staff, and also go through the arduous and destabilising process of a restrucuture.. And we are all just exhausted and depressed and hopeless. Hop pe you children enjoy their studies. And through all this, students continue, for the most part, to think we are brilliant and should be much better rewarded. Unlike some parents. The destruction of the Arts and Humanities has been stoked from give and so has the market in HE, so here we are,

Apple for typos. Hah. Usual over speedy response.

University staff get very good salary and lots of annual leave

Technically 25-30 days leave - that's normal for most jobs. Is that what you count as 'a lot'? (And obviously ignoring the fact that the workload is so high that academics often work during their annual leave.

Salaries are £38-42k for a lecturer by the way. Hardly megabucks given they'll have been studying FT to the age of 26 at least and will be the most highly qualified of all the professions.

The obligation to get work marked and degrees sorted lies with the university, not the individual lecturer. Any lecturer could drop dead tomorrow, and the institution would need to respond appropriately.

Universities have options, including paying for work to be marked, rebalancing workloads, and invoking quality procedures as used during Covid. Or returning to the negotiating table. Or throwing their hands up and blaming the small number of strikers.

Ask their managers to do their jobs. I really sympathise, but if universities focus on graduating students and use the resources they have, they can sort this out. Not that many strike.

Employers had notice of this action and their only response has been punitive deductions - you could lose a day's pay for not doing 30 minutes' work, easily, under many arrangements in place. This means university chiefs don't know what's going on on the ground, because people aren't telling. They want a clash. They could relieve it. They don't serm to want to.

@titchy it might vary but many Universities offer 35 days annual leave for their academics plus some close over the Christmas period with an extra week of paid leave so that's 40 days of AL. Salaries tend to be higher than what you say in the south east and depends on seniority with many academics making 50K+. Anyway I fail to see what's so bad with £38-42k for a lecturer, it's not the amount of time you have studied but your market value and I'm afraid working at a university is never going to earn you as much as working in the private sector, it's a choice you make.
There are also great pension packets. I really cannot see what's there to moan about. Academics have been striking for decades with strong unions, I fail to see what more they are hoping to get.

Who offers 35 days leave? Most are way less than that! Most of the post-92s have to take Christmas closure days out of their usual 25 days for example.

The MAB isn't about the pension btw.

You've correctly highlighted the issue of market value though. Which is why academics are leaving in droves. And the next generation of solicitors, medics, scientists, historians, engineers etc won't have anyone left to teach them.

Leave is on the generous side (not that generous, though!) but there's no overtime or time in lieu, so most people don't end up using all of it: only people with newborns or children with additional needs or short term family crises, in my experience.

There's little or no mechanism for others to pick up work while you are on leave, and workloads are excessive.

I do appreciate that the Uni staff may have grievances,but to take such drastic action against the final year students is despicable

Just google 35 days university and they all come up.

You've correctly highlighted the issue of market value though. Which is why academics are leaving in droves. And the next generation of solicitors, medics, scientists, historians, engineers etc won't have anyone left to teach them.

That's fine, if it's not for them they should leave and find suitable employment.
A number of Universities will have to close their doors in the near future anyway as not financially viable.

Academics striking right now are entitled.

Unpaid overtime is common in professional jobs

Academics striking right now are entitled.
They feel and act entitled. Quite unpleasant what they are doing, but it's nothing new, it happened when I was at Uni.

I'm afraid working at a university is never going to earn you as much as working in the private sector, it's a choice you make.

DD1 and DD2 are both at university. I would like them to be taught by the best lecturers. For that to happen, lecturers need to be properly paid, and have decent pensions, job security, and reasonable workloads. My DDs both support the strikes, and I agree with them.

If the university managers don’t want students to suffer, they need to get back to the negotiating table. If we don’t want our children’s education to be disrupted, we need to put pressure on university principals, not striking lecturers.