Comments for upsu

Comment on Have you got the skiing X factor? by ipoh2u348

ipoh2u348 — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 18:50:04 +0000

very good post from our team

Comment on Student opinion – exit survey 2006 (win an iPod) by Ib- Vce(sat)

Ib- Vce(sat) — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 08:12:43 +0000

hey… i badly want a POD. Thanks!!!

Comment on Students Against Lecturers’ Strike Action by aupsustudent

aupsustudent — Mon, 22 May 2006 17:43:14 +0000

Interesting comment. I'm sure your patronising quote at the end was probably not called for. However, you seem to be confused. The students are not against a pay rise indeed most would support the call for better pay, this would weed out sub-standard teaching as it is expected that a competitive salary would encourage more people to try and enter the market, thus improving standards. What students are wholly opposed to is being 'piggy-in-the-middle' to this strike. How you can ever justify not setting exams or with-holding marks as an appropriate action, students will never understand. All will have worked 3,4 or more years to earn a degree only to have this squashed at the whim of lecturers…this is a ‘wholly inappropriate position’. What also gets students is that even after making an offer both the teaching unions decided not to allow their members to decide whether this offer was fair. Hardly a democratic decision! You talk of projected figures but if top-up fees have a negative impact on recruitment then funding will go down. Weren’t you better waiting to see what impact they had before making any pay claims? This dispute can only do harm to the reputation of higher education. and recruitment goes down, university income will be reduced and you may see redundancies as everyone tries to balance the books because you screwed them to the wall on this pay claim. We may be stupid but perhaps long-term you might not be so clever yourselves?

Comment on Students Against Lecturers’ Strike Action by sionrain

sionrain — Sat, 20 May 2006 20:07:42 +0000

I think maybe this “salsaday” group might like to take quick look at the main issues surrounding the dispute rather than just taking what is in my view a wholly inappropriate position with regards the lecturers boycott.
These are the main areas which the Association of University Teachers (AUT) and National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NAFTHE) have highlighted :
“30 years ago there were nine students to every university teacher, now there are 21, this compares to an average of one teacher for every 17 pupils in our schools. To add to this pressure, 45% of all academic staff are now employed on temporary contracts and enjoy no job security. … Salaries for research staff in our universities start at 13,274, for lecturers at 24,352 and for senior administrators at 20,044.”.
They also add that the Universities will soon recieve a projected 3.4bn between 2006 and 2008. This follows 6bn in grants from the government between 2004-2005 and a long term increase in grants of 25% above inflation between 1994-2003/2004. Yet as the Prime Minister himself pointed out academics have seen practically no increase in their wages in ‘real terms’ over the past two decades. The money that was allocated by the government for 2004-2005 was granted with an assurance by the Vice Chancellors that around a third of the money would be used to update academics pay, this has not been done and the Universities and Colleges Employers’ Association (UCEA) denied ever giving such an undertaking.
The original pay claim by AUT and NAFTHE was made in October 2005, yet it is only now that the UCEA has agreed to meet with them to talk over the pay claim. Sadly we have a group of final year students at this university that seem to have got the situation backward, arguing instead that the lecturers have been using the students as ‘…pawns in thier fight.’.
For anyone with an ounce of common sense the idea that a group who submitted a pay claim almost eight months ago are the ones to blame is so stupid as to not need a response, yet sadly it seems that there now needs to be.
The much vaunted pay offer that the UCEA made doesn’t really stand up to any close inspection, if we take the UCEA’s estimate of the average pay for lecturers of 40,000 per annum (hotly disputed) then the 12% increase over 3 years would see them go to 44,800 per annum. Yet if we take into account inflation (currently running at around 1.9%) then they would end up earning in ‘real terms’ 42,520. A major difference, when you then break that down to months, weeks and days the lecturers end up earning around 6 more a day and even then in inflation continues at its current rate in six years time they would then have to start all over again because they would not be in any better position. When you also take into account the rising costs of utilities (‘real’ inflation on the cost of living rather than just capital inflation) running at somewhere around 8% per annum it makes a mockery of the pay claim from the very start.
Instead of attacking the lecturers for using the one tool that they have at their disposal shouldn’t be we looking at the way in which the UCEA has been handling the dispute?
The situation is simple, if the lecturers accept the current pay offer they will be back in the same position in six years time meaning that this will have to go on all over again, whereas if the UCEA actually do as the said they were going to do earlier on then this could have all been avoided.
Yet instead of attacking the VC and putting as much pressure on him as possible you decide to give the lecturers a kicking.
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
Albert Einstein

Comment on Hello upsu! by Mr WordPress

Mr WordPress — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 22:48:29 +0000

Hi, this is a comment.
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