The University and College Union campaigns for the improvement of the pay and conditions of further and higher education staff through the UK, and for the provision of high quality education opportunities.

Defend jobs, defend education

Universities and colleges are responding to the government's agenda of specialisation, which means they will fund only those who tick all the funding boxes and pass the discredited assessment criteria present across post-16 education. In the university sector thousands of jobs are threatened despite national funding settlements well above inflation. In further education too, jobs are at risk.

UCU wants to defend education.
We will do everything we can to protect jobs and courses.

Stamp Out Casual Contracts

The UCU 'Stamp Out Casual Contracts' campaign is a high profile campaign highlighting the work that UCU is undertaking in fighting casualisation in further and higher education, which in all its forms is a blight to both sectors, bringing with it inefficiency, inequality and personal stress.

We want to change that. The aim of the campaign is to challenge casualisation, making all members aware of the issues, giving branches the materials and support they need to make a difference locally, and encouraging staff on casual contracts to join and become involved in UCU.

Our colleges, our community, our union - help get a better deal for FE staff

The slogan 'our college, our community, our union' expresses the reality that further education is under pressure from a range of developments, including public policy that fails to fund professional pay levels, the push to turn education into a commodity and the threat of privatisation. Such developments threaten our members' jobs and pay, and also threaten to erode their professional status and to destroy their public and community function - providing education for people of all backgrounds, all ages, all abilities and all communities. This is a broad campaign to defend education.

• IOU - no more teaching on the cheap
  
  Under the umbrella of the 'our college, our community, our union' campaign also comes the campaign to get the revised pay scales agreed in 2004 implemented in the significant number of English FE colleges who are still not paying the recommended pay to teaching staff.

Fighting privatisation in tertiary education

The UK has one of the fastest growing private sectors in Europe and the level of private investment in tertiary education in the UK is already far above the EU and OECD averages. UCU is opposed to the privatisation of tertiary education.

Student qualification funding cuts

In September 2007 the government announced that, from 2008, it proposes to withdraw £100m of funding for students studying for a higher education qualification equivalent to, or lower than, a qualification (ELQ) that they have already been awarded. These plans for students contradict the government's own lifelong learning agenda and will hit universities offering courses to adults and part-time students the hardest.

Save ESOL

There is deep concern over the new funding restrictions on English as a Second Language. The changes to the funding mean that for many people with ESOL needs, course costs will shift from the public purse to the individual, unless employers make a contribution. 

Campaigning Alliance for Lifelong Learning

CALL, the Campaigning Alliance for Lifelong Learning believes that affordable access to the life changing opportunities provided by education is the hallmark of a civilised society. Groups representing students, staff and local communities have come together to campaign for the right of everyone to access to learning.

Points-based immigration

The Home Office has introduced its new points-based immigration system. The system awards points to workers' from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) for skills that reflect experience, age. The system has significant implications for members working in both HE and FE.

Fair pay for Northern Ireland college staff

College lecturers in Northern Ireland have been battling to get pay parity with schoolteachers since 2000 when an independent report highlighted that their earnings potential was significantly lower, and that teachers had greater opportunities for promotion and various allowances.

After a sustained campaign of industrial action, the pay gap has been narrowed significantly; partly thanks to the introduction of shorter salary scales and special payments. But UCU members, who work across the region in its six newly created 'super colleges', recently rejected a three-year pay deal on the grounds that its proposed salary rises came hand-in-hand with unacceptable increases in workloads.