Lecturers to vote on more strike action

STUDENTS may face a fresh wave of disruption as lecturers at 143 universities prepare to vote on proposed strikes.

Undergraduates – especially those south of the Border currently paying £9,250 a year in tuition fees – will be concerned about lost teaching time if the strikes go ahead.

Fourteen days of teaching were lost when University and College Union (UCU) members including lecturers, academics and researchers at 65 universities walked out last year in a separate dispute over pensions. It affected more than one million students according to the UCU, and led to the loss of 575,000 teaching hours.

In this latest dispute, the UCU is angry at the failure of universities to improve on an imposed 2 per cent pay rise.

The ballot result is due at the end of February.