||||
RSS Feed
image depicting person smiling
*
Website URL : http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=3787
||
image depicting Campaigns

Defend jobs, defend education

Say no to academic vandalism

Local cuts news

New: 'Fight the cuts' materials

Cuts in jobs • cuts in pay • cuts in education
- together let's fight the cuts:
(.pdf) file type icon Together... leaflet (.pdf) [220kb]
 (.pdf) file type icon Together... A4 poster (.pdf) [130kb]
(.pdf) file type icon Together... A3 poster (.pdf) [168kb]

And specifically for FE branches:
(.pdf) file type icon FE Together... leaflet (.pdf) [110kb]
 (.pdf) file type icon FE Together... A4 poster (.pdf) [129kb]
(.pdf) file type icon FE Together... A3 poster (.pdf) [168kb]

5 May 2010 - day of action

Several universities and colleges took strike action on 5 May: That 5 May Day of Action in full...

New campaign materials

We've now produced a new set of Defend Higher Education materials in our campaign to get a national agreement with the employers that commits universities to defending jobs, protecting the value of our pay and providing greater security for the most vulnerable workers in our sector.

Defend HE poster
Defend HE leaflet
Defend HE petition
Defend HE: local template (Word)

See more on the Defend Higher Education campaign site.

Save further education

Further education is entering a new phase of crisis. At least £200 million has been wiped from adult learning budgets for 2010/11 in England and, with a further £300 million of cuts to come over the next three years, more than 1,400 jobs are already under threat. The Association of Colleges says current cuts could place more than 7,000 jobs at risk. The job cuts could affect up to 160,000 adult learners on top of the 1.4 million adult learning places lost since 2005.

At a time when individuals and the broader economy need all the assistance possible to get out of recession, UCU believes that such cuts to further and adult education are a betrayal of our communities and our future. UCU has agreed an immediate and co-ordinated response. All English branches are being asked to write to principals asking them to join our campaign against the funding reductions and calling on them not to cut jobs.

Go to: Save further education

Education under threat

We're have compiled and are continually updating the numerous reports we've had about management plans for cuts and closures across the UK.
This currently totals over 6,000 jobs at risk

Massive staff cuts in higher education

In the university sector thousands of jobs are now threatened. London Metropolitan University propose to axe at least 500 jobs – one quarter of the workforce. At the University of Surrey, 65 staff are facing redundancy. At Reading, while the local community cries out for more trained social and health workers, the university wants to close the department which trains them.

Visit the joint union campaign site:
Defend Higher Education

College restructuring hits further education jobs too

In further education too, jobs are at risk. As well as restructuring plans which will lead to jobs losses, there are plans to replace lecturers with lower skilled assessors, and the fallout from the college buildings fiasco is also beginning to threaten on jobs. There is also increasing concern about government plans after a 'secret' plan to cut training for funding for young people was uncovered by the Observer newspaper.

Specialisation means less staff and fewer courses

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. This Alice-in-Wonderland logic allows universities to shut departments which actually generate surpluses, like social care at Reading, boost participation, like London Met, or have excellent teaching and research, like the departments threatened at Liverpool.

Latest national news:

Assessing the finances

A presentation by UCU senior research officer, Stephen Court, on how to do some basic analysis of institutional finances. The presentation gives some advice on tackling this subject, and presents two examples: City of Sunderland College, and UCL.

This could be of use in branches/local associations facing difficulties so as to be able to challenge what employers are saying.

On Facebook?

UCU believes:

  • making teachers, lecturers, researchers and those who support them redundant is an act of academic vandalism at any time but is an obscenity during a recession
  • the government's specialisation agenda is destroying the diversity of post-16 education, cutting off access to education for thousands of potential learners
  • universities and colleges should be expanding provision to meet the needs of our communities and our country during a recession, not reducing it.

UCU wants to defend education.
We will do everything we can to protect jobs and courses.
For more information about anything on this page, please email the web editor
Go to top of page
Link to go to top of page