Students launch petition calling for re-sit fines to be withdrawn

The GCU branches of the University and College Union (UCU) and the Educational Institute for Scotland (EIS) both called today for the senior management at Glasgow Caledonian University to reconsider their decision to fine students, who need to undertake re-sits of exams or of modules.

From the coming semester, students re-sitting exams will now have to pay £40, and the increased cost of re-sitting a module will rocket ten-fold, from £30 to £300.

Said Douglas Chalmers UCU president at Glasgow Caledonian:
“The unions at Glasgow Caledonian are extremely proud of the university’s  wider access approach which leads to many more students being able to access HE education than would have been the case previously. We fear this new approach however, will set this mission back, and will hit students from disadvantaged families – making it yet another problem for them to overcome. We also have grave concerns how this may impact on students with disabilities or illnesses during term time. We are therefore fully in support of the campaign by the local students union against what they call the ‘re-sit rip-off’ and will be raising our views with senior management in order to seek a more appropriate approach to dealing with students’ academic difficulties”.

The unions also announced they had sent an appropriate message (see here) to the local students forum pledging their support for their campaign, and urge full support for their campaign – highlighted on their website here.