Call off this nasty strike that holds our students to ransom

IN A few short years, university education has ceased to be a privilege and become something very like an obligation. School-leavers are more or less compelled to get into long-term debt to afford the degree courses which are increasingly the only ticket to rewarding jobs. Now they face missing good grades, thanks to events quite beyond their control

The University and College Union have launched another wave of disruption timed to last until March 13. They previously struck in February and March 2018, so some of the students affected will have been hit twice already. And in what looks remarkably like an act of spite, some lecturers are refusing even to provide reading lists or other help to allow students to catch up on what they have missed.

No doubt the UCU have a case. The old-fashioned gentle, secure life of the university don has vanished. Lecturers face having to pay more for their pensions, not that they are alone in this.

But it is quite wrong for them to visit these grievances on students who are innocent third parties in the quarrel, and have no power to influence the outcome. In effect, the UCU are saying ‘Give us what we want – or the students will suffer’.

In most walks of life the strike weapon is a clumsy blunderbuss which tends to blow up in the faces of those who use it. In this case they are actually threatening the future careers of people they are supposed to serve and help. They ought not to win by such methods, and if they do they will find they pay in the long run, through loss of the standing they previously held.

Call off this nasty strike.