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My daughter was due to graduate from uni on 25th July. Ceremony tickets bought, flights booked etc. Then she gets an email today saying her graduation is cancelled as they are unable to ratify her degree classification due to the marking strike.
After two years of Covid learning via recorded lectures and being charged full fees and now this we are livid.
Putting the emotion aside momentarily, has anyone else been affected and were you able to do anything about it?
My Uni has marked every student's papers. Certainly complain. I'd be asking for expenses covering too.
My daughter is in the same boat - frankly been a crappy uni experience with covid ti start it and this to finish it! Graduation postponed til February! We’ve asked for refunds etc, but it didn’t involve flights or anything like that…
We all are pleased it’s over apart from the graduation!
@shooterman No she hasn’t as the marking isn’t done. Apparently she gets a ‘basic’ degree as a holding arrangement til Feb. Pile of crap! And like you it was full fees. We also got clobbered early on for full year private halls fees despite her only spending not quite 10 weeks living there due to the lockdowns. We’d parked all that, but this has resurrected it all!
Same here @bigdaddy! My daughter is at uni in London. It becam apparent she was sitting in empty halls after a few months so she came home to NI when it became clear everything was online. Still had to pay the full fees for the halls!
To cap it all our 25th wedding anniversay is 24th July. I took my wife away early on a second honeymoon as we had to be home for the graduation on 25th. We could have celebrated our silver anniversary in Rome like we always planned had they notified us sooner!
That is shit, especially with such short notice. They might not have a huge amount of options to be fair but at the very least the comms are crap.
Yeah it stinks. The strikes aren't hurting the institutions - they've already got the cash - just the students. They might even profit from the strikes as they are not paying lecturers
My daughter should have graduated with a first by all that we can glean but her marks have been awarded as some kind of compromise by the university itself , totally unsatisfactory ! Her tutors appear to be unable or unwilling to do anything so she has been left high and dry to appeal on her own behalf , very frustrating after the last four years of crap that we have all had to endure . Most disappointing considering how hard she has worked and of course the expense of further education puts a massive strain on the whole family. We wait with more hope than expectation , those bastards are ruining young lives with these shenanagins.
Agree with all the above. To do it to this particular cohort who were robbed of the full uni experience due to Covid as well is shameful.
jamesco
Full MemberHer tutors appear to be unable or unwilling to do anything
Tutors will be basically powerless for this sort of thing, it'll all be dealt with by the university senior staff or court ie decision makers, and the more relevant department will be academic registry. Most likely people your daughter's never met. (quite often, people who barely ever meet students)
I don't know why the youth of this country are not burning the place to the ground - I honestly wouldn't blame them.
It is a total mess - I have marked all my students work because I don’t agree with the impact it has on the students (though I do understand why some staff are taking action). That aside, one positive in reply to:
We could have celebrated our silver anniversary in Rome like we always planned had they notified us sooner!
I am currently in Rome for work, and it’s absolutely grim. The heat is unbearable. You probably had a better trip coming earlier.
How crap is that!
My eldest has just finished and came away with a 1st which is brilliant but the whole uni experience has been shocking for a huge number of kids.
One if my other daughters has just packed uni in after two years as she simply wasn't enjoying it and her first year (in lockdown) was frankly awful.
She's off to Dubai in 10 days to work for Emirates and I could t be happier for her.
University is not for everyone but unfortunately there's a lot of kids just following what they think they should be doing when they probably would be better off doing something else.
The students have been screwed by the universities.
I've still got one daughter that has one year to go and them we're out of the system .... and I can't wait frankly.
My eldest is meant to be starting at York Uni
In September doing English
She’s just had all the housing stuff through, but watching the present shitshow, she’s seriously questioning whether she wants to go or not, or go and do an apprenticeship or something more vocational instead
And quite frankly I don’t *ing blame her.
Seems to me that higher education at the moment is just a racket to try and rinse as much money out of students as possible and they couldn’t actually give a flying * about them
Gutted for OP and family. I graduated in 96, got a super smart daughter hitting A-levels but massively concerned about the motive and role of universities in providing an experience and education.
@ashat, yep it was brutally hot for a few days we were there. Youngest is due his A level results next month so we're trying not to vent too much in case it puts him off uni education.
My daughter expresses similar views to those above - uni has been a car crash for this intake. Beginning to look more and more like a racket.
I know it’s no consolation, but individual staff are busting a gut. Workloads are crazy and external and internal pressures unmanageable, and pay (given the qualifications and expertise of many staff) well below market value - which is why people are taking action (though having also suffered, as a final year student during a marking strike, I personally don’t agree with this element). There was absolutely no plan, guidance or very little training during covid and in my case my University is very risk adverse, so we were stuck trying our best against an immovable object. The financials of Universities do not stack up - a lot of this is down to the government, some of it is down to all Vice Chancellors loving to build a new building (that said, I’m grateful in many cases as the state of the lecture theatres at the Uni I’m currently at in Rome, does at least show me our students are getting something for their money).
The impact of covid and strikes, in my opinion, on students has been really rubbish. It’s also been rubbish on the staff, and absence of staff due to mental health related to work i feel is at an all time high.
It is no consolation with you having students in the system now and trust me I really feel for you all; but something has to change in the future or otherwise it will implode.
Oh and I fully agree University 100% isn’t for everyone - my husband and brother included, both of whom are smashing life - we need to get away from that narrative in the UK.
Seems to me that higher education at the moment is just a racket to try and rinse as much money out of students as possible and they couldn’t actually give a flying **** about them
Having working in HE as a lecturer at a senior level, I’d agree - individual staff often care very much about the welfare of their students, but the institution is like every thing else that gets tainted by the creeping sickness of capitalism.
@ashat that is a really useful insight. I have no doubt there are very many passionate and committed thrid level educators. It is still hard to feel anything other than these young people have got a really bum deal. How do they apply for jobs or post grads if they don't actually know what their degree classification is?
Is there a possibility this could drag on so long that effectively this year's graduating class will get their final results so late they are competing with next year's graduates for jobs / post grad places?
I absolutely agree they've had a bum deal. My own institution has somehow sorted out all the final marks at Faculty level (ie two levels above the Departments which do the teaching and examining). We in our Department have not yet even seen a final mark list for our own students so God only knows what's gone on. Doubtless some sort of scaling, normalisation, compensation....., but it does mean they all have a degree classification and get to graduate.
Like ahsat, while I am very hacked off with the way the institution has treated its staff, particularly those earlier in their careers than I am, I decided I would teach and mark as normal because I felt that was too damaging to the students who, as others have said, have had a pretty crap experience.
All in all academia is not a happy place for anyone really at the moment
@dpfr that's a very commendable position to adopt. While the grievances of staff may be very real and I support the right to strike, I can't help but think the unions have got the timing of this action wrong.
Emails sent late yesterday to the uni so hopefully there will be some clarity on my daughter's position next week.
The fundamental issue seems to me to be that when education was commercialised, there should have been a contract between the institution and the student. You pay this, you get the teaching, you do the work, you get the work assessed and you get the qualification assuming the work is good enough. If you don't get the teaching, or the assessment, you should get your money back. I know that's not much help when you've wasted 3 or 4 years, but it shouldn't come to that as the prospect of having to pay up would force the institutions to deliver.
As it is, the institutions can screw more work out of the staff, and not deliver to the students (customers) and there's no penalty. I can't blame the staff for taking action, their dedication to the students has been taken advantage of for many years and it's reached breaking point - their only option to sort things out for future students is to break the system properly so that government realised its broken and that something has to be changed. Unfortunately this government doesn't want to know what's broken.
Having working in HE as a lecturer at a senior level, I’d agree – individual staff often care very much about the welfare of their students, but the institution is like every thing else that gets tainted by the creeping sickness of capitalism.
I don’t doubt the commitment of the staff, but it just seems to resemble a conveyer belt at the moment. Someone I know recently jacked in lecturing, despite loving the actual teaching part. He said it was now just a numbers game and the (useless) management didn’t actually give a monkeys about the quality of the education or the experience being delivered to students
Direct your anger at the University Vice Chancellor and not at the tutors.
Lecturers have had a bum deal for a decade and decided enough is enough.
Strikes are not taken lightly, everything else had failed.
The VC's and the "managers" they surround themselves have had multiple options and the resources to sort this years ago.
effectively this year’s graduating class will get their final results so late they are competing with next year’s graduates for jobs / post grad places?
That's definitely a potential issue but if hope it would be sorted well before that. Although they may be at a disadvantage compared to those who already have their results.
And what happens to those who have secured great jobs that are reliant upon a minimum grade?
For instance, my eldest starts at eBay* in early September but had to get at least a 2:1, what would have happened if she hadn't got her result?!
* They over only 7 grad jobs a year... #prouddad !!
Those comments by ahsat and dpfr pretty well sum up my feelings too. I’m a union member but didn’t participate. The talks are ongoing (there was a meeting yesterday), and we all hope it doesn’t drag on much longer, but personally I don’t see much movement by the universities. In my department some forms of assessment (oral presentations, oral examinations) where a staff member was on strike didn’t go ahead, and as they were in person those marks are lost and will need to be compensated. There was some variation across the sector - in some institutions the marking of those on strike was done by colleagues who were not striking. Others took a harder line and didn’t reallocate marking. As not all staff were striking it’s a bit of a mess - from our graduating class a few had all marks, most had some missing but you could say with some certainty from the existing marks what the minimum classification would be, and some others were more seriously compromised and missing most of their marks.
One thing that struck a few of us in the run up to the exam period was the lack of awareness by the students of what could happen. There was little discussion in our student newspaper, or on Student Rooms, and not much information from the university either.
@greybeard I nearly agree. The contract has to be two way though because the student has to put effort in. Its more like a coaching relationship than customer-supplier in my view. Othwerwise you get 'I've paid my money. Where's my degree?'
‘I’ve paid my money. Where’s my degree?
That’s the model parents use at fee paying schools. If the kids underperforming then it’s the teachers fault!
Having gone to university when grants were still around & no tuition fees, I don’t think I’d go now when you come out with a sizeable debt.
The contract has to be two way though because the student has to put effort in.
Yes, if the contract is to deliver the qualification. It would be too subjective to include quality of teaching or level of student effort which is what I was getting at with
you get the qualification assuming the work is good enough. If you don’t get the teaching, or the assessment, you should get your money back
The refund would be if the lectures aren't delivered or the work isn't assessed. If the student fails despite that it's their problem. It's actually the assessment that's more crucial than the teaching; most successful students have had to do their own learning at some point but but you can't do your own assessment.
<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">Is there a possibility this could drag on so long that effectively this year’s graduating class will get their final results so late they are competing with next year’s graduates for jobs / post grad places?</span>
This is something that I have repeatedly raised in our meetings. Apparently some graduate employers have dropped the need for an actual grade and people are starting their jobs regardless. Like the others, I hope it will be resolved before then, but there is so little dialogue from the Universities I don’t honestly know.
It has become a very odd situation and I really feel for the students. At the other end of the scale, I taught a field class this summer where 85% of the students (a class of 100) didn’t turn up! That is very frustrating as a member of staff when you have put time and effort in and students just don’t seem to care!
That’s the model parents use at fee paying schools. If the kids underperforming then it’s the teachers fault!
It most definitely isn't.
To be honest it puts more pressure on the kids - "I'm paying all this money, the teachers are great, you need to do better"
Any talk of unis increasing the number of places available on post grad courses to mitigate the situation?
I hope not. If you thought undergraduates were treated as cash cows to be milked, you really don't want to know about Masters programmes
Oh every Uni will be delighted to take your postgraduate fees, but not for the reason of mitigating the consequences of the strikes….
If there is a number cap it is for logistical/resource reasons and if they go over that the students will once again be getting a poor experience/service.
Met up with eldest today, just fonished his second year at Cambridge.
Cambridge being Cambridge, there are people there waiting on their results for some really big international post grad places and jobs - just left dangling and opportunities being lost.
Made me properly realise the scale of the problems this is causing students at all institutions, whatever their next step.
I'm a big fan of the right to take industrial action, but the effects of this on young peoples lives are out of all proportion.
University is not for everyone but unfortunately there’s a lot of kids just following what they think they should be doing when they probably would be better off doing something else.
Seems to me that higher education at the moment is just a racket to try and rinse as much money out of students as possible and they couldn’t actually give a flying **** about them
I was never smart enough to even go to college, I failed the 11-plus, and back in the 60’s in Chippenham the secondary schools were ‘encouraged’ to get as many school leavers into Westinghouse who were then the biggest single employer in the town, and while my first job at a car body and paint place didn’t work out, I ended up in Westinghouse as a signwriter. I’d actually asked the youth employment person about a job as a signwriter, but I was fobbed off with all sorts of stuff about having to go to college and there were few places to do it, blah blah. I did get day release at college in Bristol, where I did screen printing, and some graphics, which got me a job with a small print and publishing company in town, which led to another job where I started working with Macs, scanning photos and working with Photoshop and other graphics software. To be honest, I think learning on the job has given me far more than if I’d gone on to further education - I worked with a number of individuals who had gone through Uni and frankly their lack of fundamental knowledge was a real hindrance in a real working environment, they could come up with whizzy designs, but executing them would be hopelessly impractical and too costly to present to a client, because they had no idea how the print processes worked!
An apprenticeship is far more beneficial, actual real-world training on the job, and being paid, so no student debt - what’s not to like?
I’m a big fan of the right to take industrial action, but the effects of this on young peoples lives are out of all proportion.
This.
An apprenticeship is far more beneficial, actual real-world training on the job, and being paid, so no student debt – what’s not to like?
Very valid point - my lad is loving his uni experience, his girlfriend is doing a degree apprenticeship, £25k a year, no debt, living away from home, will have a 3 year head start on him career wise and not have £50k debt hanging over her.
My view as someone working in professional services in a mid size, top third ranked uni
The funding system is broken. No increases in fees since 2017 has hamstrung universities. Russell group and other 'top' universities have gone after the mid tier students to get more bums on seats to compensate. This leaves other unis struggling to meet growth numbers, all while costs have shot up. A degree with any form of technical element costs way more than £9k p.a. to deliver now.
The academic staff are under pressures I've never seen before. I've been in this sector 13 years and my mum was in HE for 15 years before that.
We've got compulsory redundancies and restructures happening at our place. Staff have just watched their students graduate and get made redundant the day after with their course deleted. This can be on a course with good national student survey results, but low student numbers so lower income.
We've had the 'do more with less' speech from the higher ups. F*** that. We were lean beforehand.
I'm absolutely gutted for the students not getting their results, but something like this has been brewing for years now. Student fees has been politicised and weaponised against unis. Try to make up the numbers with international students? The visas are getting capped, and if you try to recruit from the wrong places (Africa, middle East, China) you get beaten back by the home office
I was looking to move over into academia, but no way would I do that now. I'm now working on my exit strategy from the sector. I know I'm not alone
An apprenticeship is far more beneficial, actual real-world training on the job, and being paid, so no student debt – what’s not to like?
Am I being naive here in thinking that an apprenticeship is great for developing a career but incomparable to goung away to uni for broadening horizons, taking young people to new places, meeting a wide range of people and ideas and perhaps giving space for them to find themselves before committing to a life of work?
Yes. All of those opportunities exist outwith university too.
I didn't go to graduation as I couldn't afford to rent the cap and gown but was there on the day so saw my mates. Junior went to his but didn't have to rent a cap or gown - they were given a scarf thing for free.
Junior would never have met the people he did without going to uni, or done the things he's done. His mentor was into Techno, he's now a techno producer/DJ. He wouldn't have done the Mongol rally because it was financed through people he met at uni. He went on a series of freebie holidays to exotic places friends lived or had second homes. I wouldn't have financed him living in Paris and Berlin if it hadn't been for his studies. And now all those people are his friends/network (and partner).
Uni took me from working class and a secondary mod to professional class. It's taken junior from professional class to whatever he wants to be: ski instructor and DJ/producer at present, or the elite of the society he lives in if he so choses - which I doubt. Uni (Sciences Po and Humbolt) has opened doors that that would otherwise be locked and given him choice.
Uni isn't for everyone and there needs to be a proper balance.
Apprenticeships are incredibly important and should be placed in much higher regard in the UK - but an apprenticeship won't teach someone about fine art, or how to be a doctor
Some apprenticeships cover both bases. My employer has an amazing degree apprenticeship program, where we take kids at 18. They work near full time for us, get paid a fairly large amount of money (above the median wage), and over the course of four years get an information technology degree from a very good uni that we pay for.
As we’re a global IT consultancy, they get exposed to people from all over the world, get to travel all over the U.K., and often the world, on the company dime, and learn very quickly to be self sufficient and deliver.
Without fail, they’re all excellent and I love having them on my teams.
If anyone has a kid who is just finishing A level or similar, our September 2023 intake is currently open. If they meet the following, email me and I’ll point you at the application.
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Funnily enough my other child is looking at a higher level apprenticeship. He has done some of the preliminary interviews with PWC and would end up with a finance degree if he gets accepted for it. However, he is very much a home bird with no wander lust.
My daughter, on the other hand, got to spend two semesters at University California as part of her degree. She would not have had that opportunity, nor the opportunity to spend a couple of months exploring the US afterwards, if she had not gone to uni. She has gone from a quiet lane in a small village in Ireland to living three years in London. Again, not an opprtunity she would have had if she had not gone to uni.
I see the culture war has extended to "useless" degrees this morning.
Funnily enough my music student son has learnt a lot of valuable skills through years of teamwork playing in orchestras and bands, conducting the uni band and being active on the committee that runs it.
Currently kicking the arse of a lot of economics and business students on an internship with PWC
I see the culture war has extended to “useless” degrees this morning.
I saw it as a reflection of England's education system which is a knowledge based curriculum which obsesses with a narrow field of subjects and ways of achieving.... 😉
I am massively in the 'so many paths' into life view - there is no 'better'.
However I am also of the view that universities (and all the 'support services' around them) have become a money factory with poor value for effort or money being offered, with too little focus at political and leadership level on education and societal good. It borders a ponzi scheme.
I wish some money was redeployed from universities to colleges and apprenticeships, to training schemes and schools. Perhaps we need that there Erasmus+ scheme back as well to enable all sorts of educational and cultural exchange....
(This said as someone who works on a University site, has son at Uni, one at college, and one entering the university of life...)
However I am also of the view that universities (and all the ‘support services’ around them) have become a money factory with poor value for effort or money being offered, with too little focus at political and leadership level on education and societal good
I think the push to get "everyone" to university is maybe coming back to bite them - no business can grow indefinitely, and some will probably go to the wall, sadly.
We completely neglected the non-academic options for about 20 years, it seems.