A new study by Raven News has found 57% of international students support an upcoming eight-day University and College Union (UCU) strike over pensions and pay for academics.
Survey results suggest even though many international students support the strike, of those asked, about 90% of them are planning to ask for a refund for missed classes.
One hundred and two international students were surveyed for this study. This sample size falls within a 95% confidence interval with a 10% margin of error.
Forty-two per cent of survey respondents who were international students were against industrial action. One percent of students took a neutral position or found it difficult to answer.
International student Tzu Lu, from the Media and Communications Department at Goldsmiths, University of London, agrees that employees have the right to strike even if it affects students: “I would be slightly disappointed, but I respect [the academics’ right for the strike],” Tzu Lu says.
Alex Galland, another international student studying management at University College London, fully supports the strike: “I believe that university teachers are highly educated people who spent years to get where they are and they deserve to be compensated well and have good pensions. By paying well universities should be very competitive in the job market and be able to hire the best”.
University lecturers and support staff are planning to walk out between November 25 and December 4.
According to union leaders, the strike could disrupt the studies of more than a million students from 60 universities across the UK. Included on this list are University College London, City University, the University of Oxford, the University of Bath, the University of Manchester, the University of Leeds, the University of Bristol, the University of Glasgow and the University of Birmingham.
Following the end of the eight-day strike, union members intend to begin other forms of industrial action, including working strictly to contract, not covering for absent colleagues, and refusing to reschedule lectures lost to strike action.