Student News Brief | Issue No. 02

Tuition Fees Review Announced

Prime Minister, Theresa May has announced a review into university tuition fees. The aim of the reviews is to ‘drive up quality, increasing choice and ensuring value for money’, claimed the government.

The government review is expected to make a number of recommendations in a year’s time. The possible recommendation may include: cutting, freezing or introducing variable fees levels for different courses.

Justine Greening, the former Education Secretary has criticised the review. Speaking on ITV, Justine Greening said that her party’s plans could have detrimental effects on social mobility. The former Education Secretary has also called on the government to re-introduce maintenance grants.

Commenting on the announcement, the Labour Party tweeted: ‘Theresa May’s review of tuition fees will result in nothing more than tinkering around the edges of a broken system’.

Vice-Chancellors set their own Wages

An overwhelming number of university vice-chancellors set their own pay. The University and College Union stated that 95% of vice-chancellors are part of committees which decide their pay – that’s 151 out of 158 institutions. Only seven institutions prohibit their vice-chancellors from attending these meetings.

This has caused widespread controversy because of the high pay packages vice-chancellors receive at the expense of their staff and students. The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn tweeted: ‘university bosses’ pay packets have soared, while staff are fighting for their pensions and students are saddled with £50k+ debt’.

Criticising the news report, the Department for Education stated that ‘it should not be the case that vice-chancellors sit on the remuneration committees that set their salary’. They further said, ‘nor should we be seeing unjustified and excessive pay rises’.

Teachers to carry Weapons

The US President, Donald Trump has stated that teachers should carry weapons in schools. This comes in response to the Florida school shooting which left 17 dead and many more injured.

Expressing his support for the idea, President Trump stated that teachers ‘must be firearms adept & have annual training’, he further stated that it’s ‘a big & very inexpensive deterrent’. However, he has left this matter up to State legislatures to decide.

In contrast, critics have said that arming teachers is not the solution. Randi Weingarten, the president of American Federation of Teachers dismissed Donald Trump’s ideas as ‘one of the worst ideas’.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump deflected the criticism and the media coverage of his idea as ‘fake news’.

Muhammed Hussain is Assistant Editor of Student Voices and a student at the University of Roehampton.