Lecturers may say ‘no’ to marking papers due to pay dispute

Further strikes over pay by university staff could threaten to disrupt final year exams for students graduating this year. 

This would mean lecturers refusing to mark exams, coursework, dissertations and portfolios of work.

They could also boycott exam preparation meetings.

If implemented, graduation for finalists this year may be delayed or severely disrupted.

Industrial action by the University and College Union (UCU) and other trade unions over a one percent pay rise offered to university staff for 2013-14 has already affected students on a number of occasions this academic year.

University employers and union representatives are set to hold more talks amid an ongoing row over pay.

Peter Dunn, head of communications, said: “The University will act to minimise the impact of any such action on students.”

He added: “The decision to take such action would of course be one for the unions and you will have to ask them about that choice of action and their feelings about any likely impact it might have on students.”

Finalists have given their opinions regarding the possibility of their graduation being delayed due to strikes.

Alison Oates, a final-year French and History student, told the Boar: “Whilst I support the principal behind the strikes, such action would clearly hurt students the most.”

“I would like to think that lecturers who have seen us progress and work hard for three or four years would not want to hinder things at the last hurdle.”

Mr Dunn said that the pay dispute is a national issue and that “there is nothing an individual university, such as Warwick, can do to resolve such a dispute and we must await the outcome of the unions’ discussions with employers at national level”.