Law Students Demonstrate for More Lectures
With all the demonstrations going on in the run up to the G20, this one might just have slipped a little under the radar. Manchester law students recently marched on the office of Professor Alan Gilbert, president of Manchester University, to protest about cuts to their law degree course after being told that their lectures will be reduced from 30 hours a term to just 20 hours from next year. Students complained that they would not have picked Manchester if …
With all the demonstrations going on in the run up to the G20, this one might just have slipped a little under the radar. Manchester law students recently marched on the office of Professor Alan Gilbert, president of Manchester University, to protest about cuts to their law degree course after being told that their lectures will be reduced from 30 hours a term to just 20 hours from next year.
Students complained that they would not have picked Manchester if they had realised there would be so few lectures. Forty students marched on the university. They were met by security guards who told them a three-man delegation would be allowed to meet Mr Gilbert but this didn’t materialise so they continued their street protest instead.
One undergraduate said in the Manchester Evening News : "I am currently in my second year of a law degree. There are over 300 students on our course who signed up for this degree back in 2007. We pay £3,000 a year tuition fees and when we started that was for 30 lectures per term. Now without consulting students the university has decided to cut our teaching time by a third… Some of the international students pay fees of £10,000 a year – they are paying for lectures they will not now get."
Professor Gilbert has ordered a cost-saving review of all courses, which he has blamed on decades of underfunding by successive governments.
April 1, 2009
Have students really got the time for more lectures? What with anti-globalisation marches and all the other protesting they do. I’m not sure how they found time to protest about the shortage of lectures.
April 1, 2009
Where do Labour think the best area for making cuts is? Education, Education, Education!
Too many cuts in funding and too many students going to university!
April 3, 2009
Actually, lectures are an inefficient method of teaching law (and attendance tends to be a bit hit and miss anyway). Instead of lectures, additional small group classes would be much more beneficial. It might also encourage some (more?) independent learning.
April 3, 2009
If cuts are being made to lectures (staff:student ratio of perhaps 1:150) you can bet your life that small group sessions (1:5; 1:12 etc.) have already been well and truly “rationalised”!!!!
April 6, 2009
The students and the MEN got it wrong. Did you bother to check the facts? This is more Flat Earth news.