Keele’s lecturers, alongside lecturers all over the country, have been balloting for industrial action over their pensions. At Keele 85.1% voted in support of strike action. This is not a decision that your lecturers are taking lightly. They care passionately about your education. The formal negotiations are still ongoing but it looks increasingly likely that strike action will be taken, more details about the days of strike action can be found here.
The changes proposed to their pensions would mean that being an academic would become a much less appealing profession and lecturers would have to work until much later in their life in order to retire with a half decent pension. This will therefore will reduce the amount of young and talented people teaching students and increase the number of lecturers who would need to teach far into what is currently retirement age.
Make no mistake, if this change is allowed to go ahead then teaching quality nationally will get significantly worse for all students over time.
The changes being proposed are based on projections the are not certain at all. In fact it’s validity has been disputed by various experts and analysts. The Vice Chancellor of Warwick has already said that the proposed changes would have serious consequences for universities and has asked for the proposals to be redrawn.
It is because of this that KeeleSU stand in solidarity with the the University and College Union in their dispute.
We will be producing a longer form set of guidance and FAQs based on your concerns soon.
In the meantime we have written to the Vice Chancellor asking that strike action be considered an 'exceptional circumstance'. This would allow students effected additional time to study. The President of Keele UCU has also stated that she will advise her members to remove mandatory exam questions on topics that were not tought due to strike action.