There is a petition for academic justice surrounding Covid-19 and you can sign it here

A University of Sussex student has started a petition aiming for greater acknowledgement of the disruption students are facing, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Between industrial action, which affected 74 UK universities this year, Sussex included, and the global repercussions of Covid-19, a vast number of students have not received a full week of teaching since week 3 of semester 2.

Like many other universities, the University of Sussex announced it would suspend all face-to-face teaching, and all on-campus assessments have been cancelled. However, a lot of students are still expected to meet the same deadlines, and as of yet there has been no word of financial compensation for lost teaching time.

As a result, there is a heavy atmosphere of discontent at the university, and many have expressed their views towards the perceived disadvantages Sussex students are facing as a result of lost teaching time and web-based teaching.

Last week, an open letter was circulated, addressing Vice-Chancellor Adam Tickell on these issues. Now, a final year Sussex student has created a petition demanding that suitable adjustments be made in light of the disruption faced this academic year.

The petition states “Studying at University is an incredibly stressful experience with an overwhelming workload. However, when you throw a month of lecturer strikes into the mix, followed by a global pandemic the task of graduating feels even further out of reach.”

It goes on to propose deadline extensions, and “a certain degree of leniency for all students whose £27,750 qualification has been disrupted and left them disadvantaged”.

Maddie Bice, the creator, told The Sussex Tab: “The petition is aimed at standardising the adjustments made for assignments. Some of my friends have extensions whilst others don’t and this just causes greater inequality within the higher education system. I have proposed that everybody should be given some kind of leniency or deadline extension”.

Sign the petition ‘Make suitable adjustments for students disrupted by strikes and now by Covid-19’ here.