Labour must end fee-based university funding model, says Jo Grady

In a video shared on social media ahead of the union's annual Congress, which will begin in Bournemouth tomorrow, Jo lambasted successive Conservative governments for the harm they have done to education and the country at large, but also warned Labour that higher education needs the "fee-based funding model" abolished and replaced with "sustained, long-term public funding" and that the party's new deal for working people must be implemented in full.

Jo also called on Labour to gut the controversial Office for Students and "turn it into a public education taskforce", saying "it's about time the public higher education 'regulator' served the public good, not the fantasies of Policy Exchange culture warriors and neoliberal hacks."

Jo told Congress it "meets at a pivotal moment" with universities, colleges, continuing and prison education all facing severe challenges.

On higher education, Jo said: 'Our universities are in crisis. A crisis that was predictable and predicted while vice-chancellors nodded along, abetting the destruction of the sector they are meant to safeguard. This union warned from the very beginning that marketisation spelt disaster.'

Jo pointed to UCU's Reclaim Higher Education campaign as a solution to the crisis, she said: 'we need to systematically de-marketise the sector. Let's gut the misnamed Office for Students and turn it into a public education taskforce. It's about time the public higher education "regulator" served the public good.' 

Jo also referred to some of UCU's industrial wins across higher education, she said: 'At Aberdeen, Northumbria, and UEA our branches faced down compulsory redundancies. University bosses said the cuts were inevitable. We stood firm, balloted for strike action, and won.'

On further education (FE), Jo said: 'We have undertaken an unprecedented industrial campaign in FE, securing pay deals of up to 10% at more than sixty colleges: 9.5% at South Staffordshire; 10% at Bolton; 10% at Tameside; and at Myerscough College, where our branch has grown six-fold since 2019, a 12.8% pay deal. Phenomenal. And in Northern Ireland, we achieved a massive victory in a years-long dispute, leaving England as the last part of the UK where we don't have a commitment to parity between school and college teachers' pay. Our New Deal for FE strategy recognises that we still have lots to fight for [but] by sticking to the plan of building branch by branch...we can win the industrial and systemic change we need in FE.'

On prison education, Jo said: 'Organising is strong, hard, slow work. But it gets the goods. Nowhere has that been clearer than in prison education where we doubled our density, and won a 9% pay rise at Novus, as well as 8% at Milton Keynes and 7% at People Plus.'

Jo finished her speech by referring to her renewed mandate following her re-election as UCU's general secretary and calling for unity, so UCU is "ready to take on the employers" and "ready to hold the government to account."