King's College asks for volunteers to cover specialist teaching in jobs axe row

King's College London is controversially asking members of staff to volunteer to cover the teaching of specialist health school modules to undergraduates, outside their areas of expertise, according to an internal email released today by UCU.

The leaked memo asks staff in the health schools to fill in a questionnaire aimed at identifying areas where they would 'be able to contribute to undergraduate education'. It says it is focusing on undergraduate teaching because 'many of us can teach undergraduates - especially early years - outside our immediate area of research'.

UCU members at King's will be on strike tomorrow as part of their fight against redundancies in the health schools. There will be picket lines from 8am and the college has had to cancel a planned visit from Princess Anne, scheduled for 2pm, to open a new neuroscience institute at Denmark Hill.

King's plans to cut academic staff costs by 10% in the School of Medicine, School of Biomedical Sciences and the Institute of Psychiatry in order to help fund its £660m capital investment programme. 

King's has ranked academics on the basis of their research grant income and teaching hours and has identified 57 staff who it is currently proposed will lose their jobs. Consultation will shortly start with those individuals, but it has been made clear that any posts vacated will not be filled. Academic redundancies have also been announced in the Department of Education and Professional Studies. 

The union said the 'crass' memo exposed the lack of strategy behind the redundancy programme and flew in the face of college claims that the redundancies would have no significant academic impact. It said it also revealed the extent to which teaching has become secondary to the college's capital investment plans.

UCU said students, parents and NHS patients would understandably be shocked that such a prestigious institution appeared to have such an insulting attitude to undergraduate medical teaching.

Immediately following the strike tomorrow, staff will begin working strictly to contract and boycotting performance development reviews. They have not ruled out a marking boycott or further strike action, and will also be boycotting the controversial questionnaire.

UCU regional official, Barry Jones, said: 'This crass memo demonstrates that the redundancies will have a significant academic impact and makes clear that the college has no strategy for dealing with the cuts.

'King's is spreading anxiety and insecurity among staff without having any idea how to cover the work of the 57 people threatened with redundancy. We will be boycotting the questionnaire as well as taking strike action tomorrow.

'Students, parents and NHS patients will be rightly shocked that King's appears to be asking already busy staff to put their hands up if they fancy having a stab at teaching health students in areas outside of their expertise.'

Despite the late time of year, staff overwhelmingly backed industrial action in the recent ballot. 81% of members of UCU, who voted, backed strike action and 89% supported action short of a strike.