Sunday 2 November 2014

Marking Boycott will affect students at 69 universities

Over 100,000 thousands students may be affected by a marking boycott on 6th November as academics rebel over proposed pension changes.

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) will stop any planned exams and stop students receiving coursework, formal marks or feedback.

The UCU says the action is necessary after the plans proposed from employers are: “full of holes and the information they are apparently relying on to back them up keeps being exposed as misleading.”

The UCU held a ballot in which 87% of the people that voted were in favour action short of walkouts, such as the boycott. Although over three quarters of the voters were in favour of complete strike action.

The turnout for the vote was 45%.  

Talks between the Union and University UK, the employers who are proposing the pension scheme change, are due to be held the day after the Boycott starts on the 7th November.

In response to the industrial action, Universities UK released a statement on their website saying that: “We are disappointed that the UCU has decided to pursue a damaging course of industrial action aimed directly at disrupting students' education.

“Taking industrial action will not make the substantial scheme deficit and the risks to the future viability of the scheme go away.”

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