Cardiff student strikers are protesting outside a meeting in Main Building

Student strikers at Cardiff University are protesting outside a committee’s meeting in room 51 in Main Building.

The Policy and Resources Committee is holding a meeting in Main Building today and the student strikers say they are not planning to enter the meeting room nor to be disruptive.

They claim their plan is to stand in the corridor, not to obstruct or to be aggressive in any way, but “the goal is to be visible” with their banners and flyers.

The student strikers have explicitly said they are not with the UCU, they are simply a “non-violent student action group” who are “engaging in very minor disruptive actions to raise our concerns and to highlight issues with the marketisation of higher education.”

The students are handing out leaflets to everyone walking past, but are largely being ignored by the staff members going into the meeting.

The Cardiff Tab asked the student strikers why they felt this protest was necessary and they said: “Because we are on the third round of strikes now and nothing has improved… Conditions for staff are getting worse and worse. There is a direct correlation between environment staff have and their ability to deliver the education the students deserve.”

The student strikers went as far as to say the “marketisation of education has gotten to the point where students are seen as consumers.”

When asked what kind of response they are hoping to get from the university, a student striker told The Cardiff Tab: “We would like more transparency and accountability. We would like to know what’s being done because that hasn’t been made transparent. We’d really like our education organisers to be treated like humans. Some Postgraduates have been threatened with disciplinary action.”

They went on to say: “We very sadly had a lecturer not too long ago take his own life and the uni’s response was to place bars on the window. Unfortunately, things aren’t getting better they are getting worse.”

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