“Another strike. More cancelled lectures. Nine grand a year for this?” The grumble was heard across campus, as staff staged a five day walkout this welcome week. For freshers, it’s a confusing introduction to university life. For the rest of us, it’s weary dèjà vu. And once again, frustration is being aimed in the wrong direction.
The easy gripe is that our lecturers have downed tools and left us stranded. The harder truth is that they have been driven to it. The University of Edinburgh is pursuing £140 million in cuts, the largest in Scottish higher education history. According to the University and College Union (UCU) as many as 1,800 jobs could go. The impact would reach every corner of the university, from departments shrinking beyond recognition to support students rely on being stretched even further. When staff are overworked or cut altogether, students loose out too. “Our working conditions are your (students) learning conditions,” the UCU asserts, a truth too often ignored when management talk about savings.
And while many staff brace for redundancy, Principal Peter Mathieson remains cocooned in a pay package worth £418,000 complete with free housing, utilities, and even a driver. That comfort sits in sharp contrast to the staff he manages, who face real-terms pay cuts and rising workloads. Mathieson has also reportedly drawn additional sources of income he chooses not to disclose. MSP Miles Briggs condemned Mathieson’s behaviour: “It’s shocking senior staff at Scottish universities are living it up while a number of institutions face financial black holes,” also citing the threat of unemployment many staff at Edinburgh face. Moments like this one make it clear – the crisis at Edinburgh is not only financial, but moral.
And its not only pay at the top that raises questions about priorities. At King’s Buildings, three major building projects are going ahead. Management defend the spending as a way to attract students and ease the deficit. But that’s a strange kind of progress that builds gleaming new lecture halls while seminar groups swell in size and offices where students once found guidance sit empty.
As the UCU warn: staff are being treated as expendable while prestige projects march on.
Students cannot afford to shrug this off as someone else’s fight. We are the ones who will feel the hollowing out of departments, the loss of teaching hours and the decline in support. Our anger should not fall on the people forced into the picket lines, but on those who made that disruption inevitable. Edinburgh likes to talk about being a world class institution. Yet branding counts for very little if they very people who built that reputation are driven out. If we want a university worth its name, then solidarity is not optional. It’s the only way forward.
“National Union of Students, Unison, University and College Union strike placard, University of Leeds” by Alarichall is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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Blame the Boardroom, not the Picket Line
“Another strike. More cancelled lectures. Nine grand a year for this?” The grumble was heard across campus, as staff staged a five day walkout this welcome week. For freshers, it’s a confusing introduction to university life. For the rest of us, it’s weary dèjà vu. And once again, frustration is being aimed in the wrong direction.
The easy gripe is that our lecturers have downed tools and left us stranded. The harder truth is that they have been driven to it. The University of Edinburgh is pursuing £140 million in cuts, the largest in Scottish higher education history. According to the University and College Union (UCU) as many as 1,800 jobs could go. The impact would reach every corner of the university, from departments shrinking beyond recognition to support students rely on being stretched even further. When staff are overworked or cut altogether, students loose out too. “Our working conditions are your (students) learning conditions,” the UCU asserts, a truth too often ignored when management talk about savings.
And while many staff brace for redundancy, Principal Peter Mathieson remains cocooned in a pay package worth £418,000 complete with free housing, utilities, and even a driver. That comfort sits in sharp contrast to the staff he manages, who face real-terms pay cuts and rising workloads. Mathieson has also reportedly drawn additional sources of income he chooses not to disclose. MSP Miles Briggs condemned Mathieson’s behaviour: “It’s shocking senior staff at Scottish universities are living it up while a number of institutions face financial black holes,” also citing the threat of unemployment many staff at Edinburgh face. Moments like this one make it clear – the crisis at Edinburgh is not only financial, but moral.
And its not only pay at the top that raises questions about priorities. At King’s Buildings, three major building projects are going ahead. Management defend the spending as a way to attract students and ease the deficit. But that’s a strange kind of progress that builds gleaming new lecture halls while seminar groups swell in size and offices where students once found guidance sit empty.
As the UCU warn: staff are being treated as expendable while prestige projects march on.
Students cannot afford to shrug this off as someone else’s fight. We are the ones who will feel the hollowing out of departments, the loss of teaching hours and the decline in support. Our anger should not fall on the people forced into the picket lines, but on those who made that disruption inevitable. Edinburgh likes to talk about being a world class institution. Yet branding counts for very little if they very people who built that reputation are driven out. If we want a university worth its name, then solidarity is not optional. It’s the only way forward.
“National Union of Students, Unison, University and College Union strike placard, University of Leeds” by Alarichall is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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