Final year Newcastle students offered up to £200 compensation for the strikes

The university plans to give £100-£200 to those most affected


Newcastle University has informed final year students they will receive between £100 to £200 if more than three of their modules have been affected by industrial action.

In an email sent to all students this morning, it was stated that “it is normal practice for any organisation to withhold pay from colleagues who take strike action. The University is committed to to the principle that 100 per cent of this money will be used to support the student experience”.

Students who are able to receive this payment will be contacted by the uni with details of their eligibility and instructions regarding how to claim it.

However, many students feel as if this is not enough to compensate their losses, as the strikes have impacted their learning for several years during their degree.

A third year linguistics student told The Newcastle Tab: “I reckon I could count on one hand how many lectures I had for each module. I did the maths and each of my lectures is worth £59 each, so a £200 payment would make up for four missed lectures and I personally missed a hell of a lot more than that.

“The teaching for this year has been absolutely shocking, I went about four weeks without stepping into a uni building.

“I do five modules, one of which is my diss, but they were all affected by strike action, and even my diss supervisor went on strike. Final year linguistics have taught ourselves the majority of our course and had to write dissertations with little help. Our teaching this year has been completely unacceptable and £200 isn’t going to make up for a year’s worth of missed teaching. I honestly do not know what I have been paying for.”

Some first and second year students also feel this is unfair to them as they too have been heavily affected by the strikes but have not been addressed at all.

A first year law student told us: “Lots of my lectures were affected, but to be honest the final years getting compensation is more than I expected to happen. We’ve all been affected though so I think it should be all of us getting something or no one.”

This follows a petition set up in February by third year law student Emily Johnson, who called for compensation for missed teaching. The petition gained more than 1,500 signatures before the strikes started.

The strikes affected 74 universities nationwide and took place between February and March this year, accumulating 14 days of strike action over the two months.

During the strikes, lecturer’s were urged to deleted recorded lectures so students wouldn’t be able to catch up, and many didn’t respond to any emails while the strikes were happening.