Lecturers don’t want a marking boycott, either. But we must fight those wrecking UK universities | Lorna Finlayson

Pay cuts are just one factor: working conditions are also getting worse and that’s bad for both staff and students

Since late April, staff at 145 UK universities have been refusing to mark students’ work. The marking and assessment boycott is the most recent action by the University and College Union (UCU), which represents academics and other university staff. With graduation ceremonies now upon us, the boycott is causing significant havoc. Just how significant is a matter of some dispute. But what is indisputable is that many students have had their marks delayed, and some will be unable to graduate as normal this summer.

Industrial action by (mainly) academic staff is always a hard sell. Lecturers are seen as relatively privileged people. The students being hit by their latest action have already had their studies disrupted by a pandemic and a series of strikes. Seen this way, the current marking boycott can look like a selfish step too far.

Lorna Finlayson is a philosophy lecturer at the University of Essex

Marking boycott may delay degrees of more than 1,000 Durham students

University says about 20% of final-year students will face delays if industrial action continues

More than 1,000 final year students at Durham University could be left without a degree this summer because of the marking boycott disrupting universities across the UK.

Durham, one of 145 universities affected by the industrial action over pay and working conditions called by the University and College Union (UCU), said about 20% of its 5,300 final year students would “at the moment, face delays in receiving all their marks and final classifications”.

The Guardian view on universities: arts cuts are the tip of an iceberg | Editorial

Ministers are ultimately responsible for weakening the arts and humanities. They are taking the country backwards

The announcement that the University of East Anglia is to cut 31 arts and humanities posts – out of a total of 36 academic job cuts – has rightly prompted anger as well as dismay. UEA became a literary flagship among the new universities that opened in the 1960s. This year is its 60th birthday, and since 1970 it has been home to one of the most famous creative writing courses in the world: founded by the novelists Malcolm Bradbury and Angus Wilson, its students have included Anne Enright, Ian McEwan and the Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro.

There is shock, among alumni and observers, that the financial problems of the UK’s higher education sector now threaten such prestigious institutions. Once celebrated for their innovative approaches, 1960s campus universities were where different kinds of courses were developed. Creative writing is one example; media, development and women’s studies are others. In cutting the arts and humanities in these universities, managers and policymakers are turning back the clock – at a time when, arguably, there has never been a greater need for courageous innovation. Any idea that the risks are limited to the post-1992 universities should be junked.

Third of UK final-year students face grades delay due to marking boycott

Small number could attend graduation but later be told they have failed as pay dispute affects assessments at 145 universities

Tens of thousands of university students are being left in limbo without their final degree results this summer, including some who could attend graduation ceremonies only to be told later that they have failed.

About a third of the UK’s 500,000 final-year undergraduates are thought to have been affected by the marking and assessment boycott at 145 universities, part of the pay dispute between the University and College Union (UCU) and employers that has strained relations between staff, students and management.

UK graduates: have you been affected by marking boycotts?

We would like to hear from people who have left university without a degree classification or with ungraded work

A marking and assessment boycott has affected 145 universities, meaning that some students will leave university this summer without degree classifications, or with work ungraded. Students at the University of Edinburgh, for example, say they will be given an “empty piece of paper” when they graduate.

Are you leaving university without a degree classification or with work unmarked? How will this affect you, for instance when applying for jobs or other courses?

The pandemic ruined my A-levels – now the marking boycott casts a shadow over my degree | Kimi Chaddah

For those students sitting final university exams like me, this summer’s graduations are clouded by chaos and uncertainty

This year’s graduations, universities claim, will be indistinguishable from those of previous years. Except there’s one glaring problem: as a student there isn’t much to celebrate. Currently, a marking and assessment boycott is affecting 145 British universities and, like many of the thousands of students graduating this summer, I am set to leave without a formal classification.

For the class of 2023, the same year-group whose GCSEs were reformed in 2018 and A-levels cancelled in 2020, this marks the end of a deeply dispiriting educational journey.

Kimi Chaddah is a student at Durham University and a writer on education and politics

This article was amended on 13 June 2023. An earlier headline said that the writer would be left “without a degree”; this is not the case for students at Durham University. An earlier subheading implied that negotiations had halted at Durham University, while they are ongoing. Engagement in negotiations varies (an earlier version said there was “no negotiation from university management”) and all marks do not have to be received before a final degree can be awarded. A comment from Durham University denying that inexperienced people are marking exam papers has been added.

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Staff at 150 UK universities begin three days of strikes

Industrial action going ahead despite hopes of breakthrough on pay, conditions and pensions last week

Universities in the UK have been hit by strike action once again, despite hopes of a breakthrough last week with an offer from employers on pay, working conditions and pensions.

Tens of thousands of staff at 150 universities pressed ahead with planned strikes on Monday in the first of three days of industrial action this week, with many branches claiming big turnouts on picket lines.

UK university staff make breakthrough in strike dispute with employers

Unions and UCEA declare agreement ‘on terms of reference for detailed negotiations’ on pay and conditions

University staff have made a breakthrough in their months-long dispute with employers during which lecturers have gone on strike, worked to rule and refused to cover for absent colleagues across the UK.

A group of five higher education trade unions and the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) announced agreement “on terms of reference for detailed negotiations covering a review of the UK higher education pay spine, workload, contract types and equality pay gaps”.

After a marking boycott, the university threatened to withhold our pay. That only made us angrier | Tanzil Chowdhury

The disdain shown to us by Queen Mary University of London inspired me to redouble my efforts on the picket lines. Staff and students have had enough

On 29 June 2022, all the staff at Queen Mary University of London, where I work, received an email from management. To our horror, they were threatening to withhold 100% of our pay for 21 days of both July and August, because we were participating in a marking boycott over pensions, pay, labour precarity, inequality and working conditions. Life in the higher education sector had been getting tougher ever since I started my career in 2017. But at that moment, I not only resolved to continue to strike, but redoubled my efforts to get as many colleagues as possible to join me on the picket lines. The condescension from my employers made me feel something stark and visceral.

I hadn’t always felt so jaded. I finished my PhD in law in 2016 and was ready to begin a life of service in education and research, working in the subject I cared passionately about. But several things quickly became clear. There was the increasing precarity of university labour: one-third of academics are on fixed-term contracts, 41% are on hourly paid contracts and there are still 29 institutions employing at least five academic staff on zero-hours contract. In 2021, it was reported that pay had been cut by 20% in real-terms over the past 12 years, while changes to the pension scheme mean that we’ve taken a 35% cut to our guaranteed retirement income despite contributing more. Meanwhile, university and college staff are doing the equivalent of two days’ unpaid work every week on average. It’s an environment that leaves me feeling, like many others, disillusioned and questioning my future.

Dr Tanzil Chowdhury is a lecturer at Queen Mary University of London.

Students at top London university urged to ‘snitch’ on striking lecturers

Queen Mary accused of ‘turning students into spies’ to gather data on academics who did not reschedule missed teaching

A prestigious London university has become the first in the country to use a “student snitch form” to encourage students to report striking staff, while threatening to dock full pay for 39 days if those named fail to reschedule missed teaching.

Queen Mary University of London was branded the “worst university employer in the UK” by the Universities and Colleges Union last July, after it deducted 21 days of full pay from more than 100 staff who refused to mark students’ work in June as part of a national boycott. But staff claim the university, a member of the esteemed Russell Group, has reached a new low and “destroyed trust” by “turning students into spies” to gather data on who went on strike in November and February, and which classes have not been rescheduled.

Strikes by university staff called off after pay breakthrough

Move follows agreement from employers on lowest-paid workers and review of salary grades

Strikes by university staff over the next two weeks have been called off after a breakthrough in negotiations over pay, pensions and working conditions, unions have announced.

Five unions – Unison, UCU, GMB, Unite and EIS – issued a joint statement with the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) confirming three days of strikes will be suspended following talks at the conciliation service Acas, though discussions will continue.

Ministers and unions dig in amid widespread strike action across UK

Little prospect of breakthrough as strikes hit schools, trains, universities and border posts

Unions and the government appear as far apart as ever after widespread strike action closed or partly closed more than half of schools across England and Wales.

Striking workers from participating unions held rallies in cities including Bristol, Brighton, Birmingham and London on Wednesday as teachers, university staff, rail workers and civil servants stopped work to demand better pay.