A message from Roger

The UCU general secretary ballot result has now been declared and Sally Hunt has been elected. The union and our members face major and difficult challenges from employers and government in almost every aspect of our working lives. The turnout was just 13.9 per cent which in itself suggests the scale of the challenge the union faces. I wish Sally Hunt very well in meeting those challenges. To meet them successfully will require a clear strategic vision and a determined articulate response which members can have confidence in and ownership of. I will seek to play my part in ensuring that is the case through my continuing role as Head of Equality and Employment Rights Finally I would like to sincerely thank the hundreds of members who sent messages of support and campaigned during the election.

Monday 29 January 2007

Friday 26th January

First the good news

Congratulations to the UCU Higher Education Committee on its speedy and decisive response to the threats to privatise university language centres.

The Committee today endorsed a robust motion calling for full and vigorous support to all branches and local associations seeking to stop the activities of INTO – the vehicle whereby property entrepreneur Andrew Colin is seeking to take over up to 16 language centres.

Congratulations also to the Newcastle UCU Local Association for trying to stop the company.

The post mortem on why on earth no national campaign was begun until now can wait. The important thing is to alert every other threatened centre. The delays really really haven’t helped matters but let’s all pull together now.

Now the bad news

The Times Educational Supplement this week reports the Learning and Skills council have taken another leaf out of the Ryanair School of management. Rob Wye, LSC Director of Strategy (is that a misprint?) announces that “notices of improvement” will be served on colleges if more than a quarter of their courses have less than half their students going onto gain a qualification. He calls this “the nuclear option”.

As I told TES “There may be a number of reasons colleges are in this position. It might be because they are dealing with particularly challenging students. The mission of FE is, in part, to take chances with people who might fail or drop, out. All these measures do is to add to the climate of fear”

The relentless pursuit of “contestability” and league tables will inevitably lead to perverse incentives to refuse to admit students who “look as if they might drop out” as one college put it. The main effect of this measure will be close doors for students and add to the pressures on staff.

Pathetic.
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A trade unionist all his working life. An activist and a proud campaigner, Roger has consistently worked to defend human rights of workers. As the leader of the Equality and Employment Rights team in the newly formed UCU he continues to unite the movement around equality and keep employment rights at the top of the agenda.