The marking boycott is only hurting students
“I wonder what my graduate certificate will look like … oh, wait…”
Thousands of students have graduated with no classification, effectively receiving a TBD on a blank certificate. The marking boycott has resulted in many students from the class of 2023 being handed token participation certificates rather than an actual degree. But not all students received a blank sheet of paper upon graduation. The UCU marking boycott is disproportionately impacting a handful of students across the UK. The boycott’s unfair targeting on certain students, disciplines, and faculties is holding many back from graduation jobs, study abroad prospects, and work placements is disproportionately affecting Humanities, Arts, and working-class students.
Surely there is another form on industrial action that does not selfishly delay the lives and earning potential of thousands of students, who ultimately are customers of the institutions they’ve attended.
Not all students have been impacted by the marking boycott. This has varied across disciplines and even modules within a discipline. For example, some Law students at UofG have graduated with their classifications whilst others haven’t. Students from the same law cohort of 2023 have experienced graduation inequality.
Furthermore, the boycott has disproportionately affected different subjects and disciplines. Humanities and Arts subjects seem to have taken a greater hit in the boycott, including myself. I am still waiting to receive marks for two essays that I submitted back in April. Whilst the boycott didn’t prevent me from progressing onto the final stage of my postgraduate course, I did use those essays to practice for my dissertation. And to my dismay, I still don’t know if I did well on them or not.
Humanities and Arts subjects also generally don’t lead to a vocation. For example, if you’ve completed a History degree, the world is your oyster. Whereas if you’ve completed a degree in Accounting and Finance, you’ll likely have a more direct path into a vocational job within the world of banking, auditing, or accounting. Because Humanities and Arts skills create graduates with transferrable skills, if these graduates don’t have the classification to show for it, employers may question whether those individuals do actually have those skills.
Humanities and Arts graduates are also on average likely to earn less than their STEM or finance peers. However, this does depend on the job sector one enters into after university. But when companies are pulling job offers from the table because a student doesn’t have their grade, that earning potential is stripped away from them. For that reason, the marking boycott is the most selfish form of industrial action yet.
The marking boycott is also likely to affect working-class students more so than their middle-class peers. A paradox given that the action is in favour of better working conditions. If a working-class student has not received their degree grade and had a grad scheme on the line that was taken a way from them, their early potential for social mobility has been stripped from them. A working-class student may not have the finances to simply take time out and wait for their degree. Student loans and any university scholarships won’t apply to graduates after becoming an alumni, being detrimental to working-class students who heavily relied on those funds. A middle-class student may not experience the same financial difficulties, having enough money to ride out the wave of the marking boycott. University is about expanding the mind but also about increasing the chance of social mobility. The UCU may be fighting against the Ivory Tower, but all their action is doing is reaffirming its hierarchy.
I, along with many other students, recognise the ongoing dispute between the UCU and universities. The gender and ethnic pay gap should not be something the UCU are still having to battle for. Burnout is a real thing, for lecturer and student alike. Yet, when lecturers who fail to mark the work of students who have undergone burnout just to submit their assignments and don’t get it marked, it’s like receiving a cream pie in the face. And a soured cream pie at that.
University is also an education service that many students pay for. Although Scottish students studying at Glasgow attend the institution for free, they may still rely on loans to be able to pay for the cost of living. The high fees that other UK nationals pay to attend university and the even higher fees for international students, well these customers are expecting a return from their financial investments. And the marking boycott is plundering students’ investments in their education, having nothing to show for their hard work. By not getting your work marked, you’re effectively buying a product that hasn’t delivered. Like an iPhone that switches on but you can’t call or text anyone with it.
Despite many students showing sympathy for staff partaking in the marking boycott, those same students are frustrated. With knock-on effects of doing more harm than good to working-class, Humanities, and Arts students, this boycott is not working. It’s not affecting the universities. It’s affecting the students. Surely the UCU can come up with a better form of action that doesn’t delay students from progressing to the next stage of their lives. Because this marking boycott is selfish. It’s disproportionately hurting the people the UCU claim to be fighting for.
