Stop striking, start teaching

As a smattering of placard-holding lecturers engaged in a mother’s meeting around monument, displacing the Subway advertising bloke, students lay in bed and the academic powerhouse (cough) of Newcastle University came to a standstill. So what was it all about?

Essentially, those lovely people who push the spacebar and read a powerpoint every now and then, rejected a 3% rise in pay. I know right?

Come on guys, get with the programme, austerity is definitely vogue.

We students over here are paying shitloads. To my mind, all this has done is once again highlight how little value for money students get.

In the additional spare time created by this strike action, I did some maths (B in GCSE and proud). My 9 contact hours per week cost 333 quid. That’s 2 years supply of Kit Kat Chunkys right there.

So when Xavier Guegan (absolute hero of a lecturer, who probably does deserve a pay hike) announced defiantly that he was striking, I was a bit bemused as to how students were expected to understand and support it. Oh, and pay for it.

Oxford Professor, Andrew Hamilton only recently suggested fees of 16,000. Probably a great chap, but he should definitely sack off that mantra. What he did mention though was how higher education has become increasingly privatised. Students have to foot the bill. I’m starting to think this is all a clever ploy; get the students on side by giving them the day off, then ask them for more money. It would probably work if we actually went in the first place.