City University students demand tuition fee refund while lecturers strike

The strike is due to start on Thursday February 22
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Martin Coulter20 February 2018

Almost one thousand students at City University have demanded they be refunded over £1,000 each after their lecturers announced they are to go on strike.

Teaching staff at more than 60 universities are due to walk out after pension talks between the University and College Union (UCU) and Universities UK broke down.

A petition tied to the campaign has received 850 signatures.

It reads: "We, the students of City, University of London, believe that it is fair and just to be proportionally financially compensated for the loss of teaching we will suffer during the days of the UCU strike.

"For a UK student, based on 20 teaching weeks (100 days) that is £9250/100 = £92.50 per day.

"Over 14 days this equates to £1295 and even more for international students."

Signatory Paulo Buco wrote: "[The £9,000 a year fees are] barely worth it already - missing a whole month is just atrocious."

Another, Jindy Sangha, added: "They stand up for their pensions; we stand up for our studies."

Similar petitions have been set up by student groups at universities around the country.

The strike, which is due to start on February 22, will see university lecturers strike for an increasing number of days each week that their demands are not met, totalling 14 days.

Those joining the industrial action claim proposed changes to their pension scheme will make them £10,000 worse off in retirement.

Martin Wilson, president of the university's Pro Bono society, told the Standard: "During strike action, the university will not be paying their staff, however they will retain 100% of the tuition fee students’ paid in order to pay those staff.

"Whilst the university should not unduly suffer as a result of something beyond its control, neither should the consumer.

"At the very least, the University shouldn’t profit while the consumer suffers a loss.

"The University should retain from our tuition, the facility’s operating costs over the strike days as it is beyond their control however, they should refund the remainder as they will not have the expenditure of staff wages.

"We accept that strike action is not the institutions fault, but neither is it the students’.

"It is our argument then that those of us having sections of their module removed from the curriculum are not receiving the service we, as consumers, are paying to receive."

A spokesman for City, University of London said: “Our priority is to ensure that industrial action does not adversely affect our students. We will seek to maintain our high academic standards and ensure that students remain able to complete their programmes of study and graduate as anticipated.

"Given the actions we are taking to minimise disruption, we do not anticipate that any student will face significant disruption to their programme of academic activities. We do not therefore anticipate that the issue of financial compensation will arise.

"However, students can raise complaints through our established complaint processes and can also contact the Students’ Union for advice.”

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