Fight for free education

Adam Powell-Davies, Socialist Students national organiser

In April, the University and College Union (UCU) launched a marking and assessment boycott at 145 universities across the UK. University staff are striking for pay amidst the cost-of-living crisis, and to defend terms and conditions as university bosses try to squeeze as much as possible from them. And the quality of our education has suffered as a result. Socialist Students supports the strike and has shown solidarity at picket lines up and down the country.

University students now have a clearer picture of how the boycott impacts us. At Durham University, hundreds of students have been told that they won’t progress to their next year of study. Queen’s University Belfast has announced that 1,200 students may not be awarded degrees this summer. And at the University of Cambridge, hundreds of politics and sociology students won’t receive their exam results until October.

Many students affected by the boycott have been left frustrated and demoralised. As things stand, thousands of students could be prevented from moving on to the next stage in their life, such as the next year of their course, a job or internship, or graduate study.

While university managements have been eager to blame striking staff for the disruption to students’ lives, some students speaking on social media and in the national press have challenged this narrative. They have correctly pointed out that the onus is on the employers’ association, UCEA, to meet UCU’s demands on pay and conditions, and end the current dispute.

Any university that claims it can’t afford these demands should open its books to inspection by the campus trade unions and democratically elected worker and student representatives. If a university genuinely can’t afford to give its staff at least what the UCU demands, then the government should step in to make up the difference, with money given to universities under trade union oversight.

At a few universities, vice-chancellors have joined students and staff in calling on UCEA to re-enter negotiations with the UCU nationally. This shows that the marking and assessment boycott is having an effect.

Although many vice-chancellors have finally been forced to admit the ‘broken’ nature of university funding, none have come out and called for what is necessary: fully funded, free, higher education.

Meanwhile, at most other universities, managements have dug in and cobbled together a whole range of ‘mitigations’ aimed at allowing students to progress without the usual assessment-based checks and balances.

No doubt, some students will be grateful for these measures. But we say it should be university unions who should hold the decision-making powers over mitigations, in discussion with elected student representatives. Mitigations shouldn’t be left in the hands of the bosses, who are attempting to drive a wedge between students and staff.

As the marking and assessment boycott continues, many students will feel caught in the middle between the UCU and the university bosses. That’s why Socialist Students says that students have to get organised ourselves, to unite with staff in a mass campaign to fully fund our universities and win free education.