Medics hit by pay dispute
Students face disruption in their exams this term as lecturers continue their marking boycot
Oxford tutors have been refusing to mark exam papers as a result of AUT action, part of the wider national dispute over academics’ pay that has disrupted the country’s universities. Medicine students who sat their Moderation papers in March have not received the marks for the psychology paper with only a partial pass list being displayed in Exam schools.
As a result, affected medicine students do not know whether or not they will have to sit vivas, recalls for the examinations, which normally take place immediately after the Board of the Examination meets at the start of the Easter holiday. Vivas are commonly used to test borderline candidates. The University has denied that the marking boycott was causing any inconvenience to students. Brian Gasser, clerk to the Proctors said, “To our mind all examination Boards are functioning properly.
However, one senior tutor has admitted to The Oxford Student that the strike is affecting students in Oxford. Betsy Tyler-Bee, the Assistant Registrar in the Medical Sciences Teaching Centre (MSTC) said, “the fact that there were incomplete results available results from the AUT activity.” Colin Cook, Chief Technician of the Medical Science Division, said that he did not think the Mods papers would be marked, and that it was “entirely in the hands of the examiners.
We do not know what’s going to happen at the moment.” The Chief Examiner for Experimental Psychology, Paul Azzopardi said that “he didn’t know yet’ if the Moderations for Psychology that took place this week would also be affected in terms of their marking. Cook also threw doubt on the University’s ability to prevent disruption to the Finals papers being sat later in the term.
He told this paper, “We will probably need to draft people in from outside to mark the papers, and yet there is not a vast number of people out there who would be sufficiently qualified to do this. Ideally we need people who are familiar with the system and the course.” Cook added, “Even those members of the university who are not in support of the AUT action may be reluctant to step forward and mark the papers.
Last term The Oxford Student reported that students may find their exams disrupted as a result of March’s AUT strike, with a boycott of all assessment and examination activity continuing from 8 March onwards. A statement from the Proctors warned, “Trade Unions representing academic staff have asked members to take ‘action short of a strike’ by not participating in University Examinations.
In some subjects this may affect activities like the setting of papers, or candidates sitting examinations, or assessment (including vivas and the marking of hand-in work as well as exam scripts), or the finalisation of results.
A member of the Medicine JCC, who wished to remain anonymous, said, “I think it’s terrible that our papers have not yet been marked; these results affect the rest of our degree, and not to know whether or not we have passed is very unfair after all the work we have put in.” OUSU President Emma Norris said, “Anything like this which is harmful to students, especially in terms of exams, we would like to see resolved as quickly as possible.
The Student Union needs to be kept fully informed about what is going on in order to be able to give students suitable advice. It is however in the students’ interest that this dispute is resolved in favour of the AUT. University teaching jobs need to be decently paid in order to attract the best tutors.
Terry Hoad, Honorary Secretary of the AUT in Oxford, told The Oxford Student, “In a sense the students are suffering for something which they cannot actually change but this is one of the few ways we feel we can take effective action. People have been reluctant to disrupt the close academic arrangement that exists between tutors and students.” Hoad was optimistic about reaching a resolution quickly.
“We have had good, constructive discussions with Oxford University regarding pay setting at a local level. It is not that the University is individually not responding. We are trying to exert pressure on our university to put pressure on the Employers’ Association in a national dispute.” As a member of the Annual National Review of Salary Levels, Oxford University will be able to credit its views and, according to Hoad, put pressure on the Union. “Our dispute is with USEA,” he said.
Asked what action the university was taking to minimize disruption a spokesperson for the University said, “The University’s aim is to minimise any disruption to the examining process, and our priority is to preserve the fairness and rigour of that process.
“If the normal examination arrangements need to be changed, candidates will be individually notified, as far in advance as possible, by the Senior Tutors of their Colleges or Chairmen of Examiners and will receive full instructions about alternative arrangements.” Nationally, the pay dispute is still continuing. On Wednesday, the NUS undertook a dramatic reversal of policy, when it abandoned its strong support for the strike.
Although continuing to support the lecturers over their pay request, the NUS appealed for lecturers to set exams to reduce the disruption to students. The AUT has rejected the plea.
27th Apr 2006