Students at a Midland university are giving their own lectures in a bid to sidestep a staff strike.
A small group of students at the University of Warwick ’s history department took matters into their own hands when lecturers voted to stage walkouts.
Third-year students looked up their notes from the previous year and lectured second years, while the second year students lectured the first years.
Remy Osman, a second-year student who gave a lecture during the most recent stoppage, said undergraduates should not have to suffer because of the dispute.
“Most people support in principle the idea of lecturers getting a higher wage but there has been so much disruption to our education,” he said.
“We are going to be examined on all this.
“The first time the lecturers went on strike people didn’t really say very much but the numbers coming to our lectures show people are starting to notice it.”
Hundreds of students were among 826 people who signed an open letter to Warwick University vice-chancellor Prof Nigel Thrift backing the striking lecturers’ demand for better pay.
But the University and College Union said it was disappointed by the decision of some students to give their own lectures during stoppages.
Spokesman Dan Ashley said: “We would urge any students frustrated by our action to speak to their lecturers to understand why we have had to resort to this and put pressure on the vice-chancellors’ representatives to come back to the negotiating table and get the dispute resolved.”
Lecturers, and other university staff, are angry about a one per cent pay offer.
The dispute began last year with two days of industrial action. So far this year there have been two separate two-hour walkouts.
A new day of strikes is planned for Thursday, with a two-hour walkout on February 10.
