UCU
Course closures, funding cuts, job losses, fees...
Written by TheSocialist Monday, 22 March 2010 14:50
Defend higher education
The last 18 months, since the start of the economic crisis, have seen students and campus trade unions organising protest action in Britain on a scale not seen since the movement to oppose the introduction of tuition fees in 1997-1998. Why? Higher education faces a 'fight for survival' as reports show that funding could be cut by a third.
Swingeing job cuts, course closures and even campus closures are threatened. Proposed cuts mean, for example, that the only department in the country which specialises in palaeography, the practice of deciphering and reading historical manuscripts, would be gone, denying society an understanding of history.
University cuts must be fought
Written by Administrator Monday, 10 August 2009 00:18
On 23rd July, Queen’s University’s (QUB) senate met and agreed an academic plan for the next five years which will see 103 staff being made redundant. The most dramatic effect of the cuts will be the closure of the German department, but all the university’s schools will be effected in some way.
These cuts come despite QUB actually receiving an increase in funding of 2% for teaching and learning and 7.7% for research. The university management wish to shift the emphasis away from frontline teaching and local-oriented research towards international research, which lends more status within the prestigious Russell Group. Their stated aim is to make Queen’s one of the top 100 universities in the world within the next 5 years. The idea that this can be achieved while cutting staff and resources is entirely false.
