Firstly, the Browne review recommended removing the [...]]]> UK universities have been rocked in the last month by 40% cuts to public funding, proposals to raise student tuition fees to £9000, to completely marketise the funding base for many subjects and, predictably, to make it easier for US for-profit companies to expand to fill the gaps.

Firstly, the Browne review recommended removing the cap from student fees (they are currently capped at just over £3000), allowing universities to charge whatever they liked. The government has since indicated that it will cap fees at £9000, a move that will still make the UK the most expensive place to study in the world, saddle students with staggering debts and lead to the stratification of provision. UCU said that this represented ‘the final nail in the coffin for an affordable university degree for the vast majority of ordinary families.’: http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=5058&from=5047&start=11

The other bombshell in the Browne report was the recommendation to remove all public funding from all but a few stretguc priority subjects, making arts and humanities and many social science subjects entirely dependent on student recruitment for their survival. UCU said that this would lead to the closure of departments and whole universities, the overall narrowing of provision and would have a ‘chilling’ effect on innovation. In short, it represents an attack on everyting that universities are supposed to stand for.

Shortly afterwards, the government confirmed its widely anticipated 40%  cuts to university funding, indicating that it intended to enact the recommendations of the Browne report. As the union emphasised, this will have a devastating effect on the sector, leading to a loss of capacity and innovation that will take decades to repair, while betraying generations of young people by shutting them out of higher education: http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=5066&from=5047

But don’t worry, says the government. All will be well, for for private sector will step in to save the day. As we’ve posted here in the past, US education companies are moving into the UK in a big way and have been lobbying the government for a ‘level playing field’ that would give them access to publicly subsidised loans, public funding, and university title. In short, they want to produce the same conditions in the UK that enabled the astronomical growth of the for-profit sector in the USA. The trouble is, as we have pointed out, this is the high road to the same kind of mis-selling and corruption scandals that have rocked the US for-profit sector recently. We tried to tell the government this in October with the publication of a new report that detailed these problems: http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=5023&from=5003. But it seems they weren’t listening.

In Italy, things are going from bad to worse. This Government has cut funding in every public branch. Schools, Universities and public institutions of research have been the first victims. We had, all in all, a cut of about 10 billions euros in 3 years, which [...]]]> A report from Marco Broccati, FLC CGIL (Italy)

In Italy, things are going from bad to worse. This Government has cut funding in every public branch. Schools, Universities and public institutions of research have been the first victims. We had, all in all, a cut of about 10 billions euros in 3 years, which means a cut of 150,000 teachers and researchers in the same period. At this time, school teachers are striking in front of the Parliament without eating and drinking. But the Minister of Education Gelmini refuses to meet them, pretending that this is a “political protest” set up by the opposition Parties. Our public school system is disrupted: we cannot guarantee services to families. So is the University system: by the end of the year, most Universities will not be able to pay the wages of teachers and technical-administrative staff. As for research institutions, all funding for research projects has been cut. The so-called “reforms” of school and university have only the aim to cut and reduce the role and presence of the public sector, giving way to private schools and universities. It should be remarked that while the funding of public institutions has been reduced, private institutions have grown their funding. This year we’ll have to deal with about 40,000 school teachers losing their job. Can you call this the “knowledge society”? It really looks like a project to create an “ignorant society” This is what our Government is planning for our future. But they won’t succeed. Knowledge workers and FLC will make a stand.

Marco Broccati. FLC CGIL.

This comes at the same time as news that 200,000 young people will miss out on a university place this year as a result [...]]]> 22,000 staff risk losing their jobs if the government presses ahead with plans to cut 25% more from already slashed HE budgets, according to UCU research published in July: http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=4736&from=4725&start=11

This comes at the same time as news that 200,000 young people will miss out on a university place this year as a result of cuts already made and that the government is encouraging young people to ‘aim lower’ in the future: http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=4988&from=4775

UCU general secretary Sally Hunt has warned the government that “Other countries are increasing the number of graduates to compete in a high-skill knowledge economy, yet our government seems intent on doing the opposite. It is not scaremongering to talk about a lost generation of learners.”

http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=4749&from=4725

It is also this context of public austerity that is accelerating the drive toward using the private sector: http://educationsolidaritynetwork.org/2010/08/uk-academics-slam-privatisation-of-universities-as-bpp-becomes-university-college/

Support for London Met campaign as greylisting continues to bite:

The campaign to [...]]]> Many thanks to those unions who sent messages of protest to the Vice Chancellor of London Metropolitan University and circulated our call to ‘greylist’ the university. The following update went out to all our members at the end of last week.

Support for London Met campaign as greylisting continues to bite:

The campaign to Save London Metropolitan University continues to be buoyed by national and international support for greylisting of the institution. Organisations, conference speakers, and individuals from across the international academic and trade union community have all contacted us to say they will support their colleagues under threat by refusing to collaborate with LMU while greylisting is in force. As well as receiving support from academic unions in Ireland and Canada (you can read the Canadian Association of University Teacher’s letter here: http://www.caut.ca/pages.asp?page=829 ) the campaign continues to keep up the pressure on management as events and conferences are cancelled due to non-participation by our supporters. For example the ‘Qualitative Marketing Research’ career development event due to take place in November has been cancelled and letters of protest written to the vice-chancellor.

Please keep the information coming in and please DO continue to write to the vice-chancellor at LMU, Alfred Morris (Alfred.Morris@londonmet.ac.uk) to express your concern and your support of the greylisting (please copy to jstephens@ucu.org.uk. You can find up to date information on the campaign blog here http://savelondonmetuni.blogspot.com/2009/10/staff-and-students-strike-against-job.html

Jonathan

Dear colleague

Support the “Greylisting” of London Metropolitan University

UCU has instituted the greylisting of London Metropolitan University in protest at plans to  cut 550 jobs.

This means that [...]]]> Please find below a letter from UCU’s General Secretary Sally Hunt to all signatories of the international agreement and a request for your help.

Jonathan

Dear colleague

Support the “Greylisting” of London Metropolitan University

UCU has instituted the greylisting of London Metropolitan University in protest at plans to  cut 550 jobs.

This means that we are asking UCU members who have professional non-contractual links with the university to cut these relationships until normal industrial relations are resumed. For example, we are requesting that conference and seminar speakers from outside the university cancel their commitments. We are also asking that members across the country contact the Vice Chancellor of London Metropolitan University with a letter of protest.

Support the “Greylisting” of London Metropolitan University

UCU has instituted the greylisting of London Metropolitan University in protest at plans to  cut 550 jobs.

This means that we are asking UCU members who have professional non-contractual links with the university to cut these relationships until normal industrial relations are resumed. For example, we are requesting that conference and seminar speakers from outside the university cancel their commitments. We are also asking that members across the country contact the Vice Chancellor of London Metropolitan University with a letter of protest.

I am writing to ask for your support for this campaign. I would be grateful if you could do two things:

1. Write a letter of protest to Vice Chancellor Alfred Morris (Alfred.Morris@londonmet.ac.uk ) and please copy all correspondence to Justine Stephens in my office at jstephens@ucu.org.uk
2. Circulate this letter among your members, asking that if any of them have professional connections with London Metropolitan University, they contact UCU by emailing jstephens@ucu.org.uk

On behalf of our members at London Metropolitan University, thank you for your support.

Sally Hunt
General Secretary, UCU

Background

• In late 2008, the Higher Education Council in England demanded that London Metropolitan University repay £36 million in funding following the submission of incorrect student completion records. The UK funding system rewards high student recruitment and punishes non-completion. This affects universities which attempt to ‘widen participation’ to working class and ‘non-traditional’ students in particular.
• London Metropolitan is one of those universities and between 2004 and 2008, it submitted incorrect records that inflated the number of its students who completed their courses.
• The funding council’s decision to reclaim the money given to London Metropolitan placed it at financial risk. Management’s response was to state that it intended to cut 550 posts. Despite our best efforts over the last 9 months to attempt to persuade the university to enter into formal negotiations to reach a resolution, and a vigorous, nationally and regionally supported branch campaign, including industrial action, the university is forging ahead with the planned compulsory redundancies.
• The situation at London Metropolitan University is unprecedented in the UK. The Vice Chancellor, Brian Roper resigned in March and a special report into the funding Council’s role in the affair was published last month. After months of public pressure from the academic community, UCU and our sister unions, a consultants firm have been commissioned to undertake an independent inquiry into the situation at London Metropolitan and UCU will be contributing to this inquiry.
• We are campaigning for a fresh start for London Metropolitan. The staff and the students deserve a new leadership and new, open and productive industrial relations. Yet, in spite of our calls for a suspension of their proposals until after the independent reports have been made public, the management appears dogmatically committed to press on with its plans to make 550 redundancies of which many, we fear, will be compulsory.
• As a further twist, the right wing think tank Policy Exchange, which is influential among the Conservative Party in the UK has suggested that London Metropolitan could be broken up and sold off to private sector providers.
• UCU believes that we cannot stand back and allow this university to be destroyed. We cannot stand by and allow hundreds of staff and students pay the price for a catastrophic failure of management and governance.
• As a union, we must be able to say that it is unacceptable for staff to pay for mismanagement with their jobs and students to suffer huge detriment to their education and we must establish the principle that universities must be accountable for their actions.