University could ‘slash quarter of teaching jobs due to drop in student numbers’

A London university has come under fire over its plans which a union has said could result in it cutting up to a quarter of teaching staff, following a drop in student numbers.

The proposals at Birkbeck, University of London, could also see it slash its administrative workforce in half, the University and College Union (UCU) has said.

Around 140 jobs in total are threatened by the plans.

The UCU said the cuts would be a “disaster” for the London evening university and threatened industrial action if they were to go ahead.

However, the university has denied that the cuts are being proposed as a result of a drop in student numbers, and says they are part of a restructure designed to reflect changes in course popularity.

A spokesperson for the university acknowledged they were consulting on proposals which could equate to the loss of around 10% of posts at the university. However, they said that a number of the posts were already vacant.

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Birkbeck emailed staff last month to announce the plans to cut its workforce, according to UCU.

The university said it planned to let 84 academic and 56 administrative staff members go by next summer.

This included nearly a dozen staff in its English, theatre and creative writing department, up to 10 in geography and up to seven in politics, according to the UCU. The union claimed the university had said it needed to make cuts to fill a multi-million-pound deficit from a drop in student numbers, but the university denied this.

But the UCU branch president urged the university to focus on efforts to attract students rather than slash jobs.

“Birkbeck has a proud history of reaching students who otherwise would not enter higher education. Sacking 140 staff, including up to one in four teaching staff, threatens to trash that history,” Mike Berlin said.

”The cuts would severely harm student learning and jeopardise the university’s commitment to social mobility and lifelong learning.

“We urge management to rethink its knee-jerk job cuts and instead work with us to look at how we can attract more students.”

The UCU Birkbeck branch president said the union would have “no option other than to begin taking steps for an industrial ballot” if the university planned to proceed.

Tens of thousands of university staff across the country voted in favour of strike action in a row over pay, conditions and pensions last month.

The UCU called on vice chancellors to enter negotiations to avoid disruption after the vote.

A spokesperson for Birkbeck said the university has committed to redeploying staff wherever possible and making compulsory redundancies as a last resort only.

This article was amended on the date of publication. The headline originally said that Birkbeck was to ‘slash quarter of jobs due to drop in student numbers’, but this was not accurate. The proposed cuts would result in the loss of a quarter of teaching jobs according to the UCU, not the number of posts overall.