Not many people know that there is a sizeable Canadian student minority living in Leicester. Around a quarter of the University of Leicester’s student population is Canadian and that number has been steadily growing since 2007. The majority of us are here studying law in a two-year condensed LLB course. We have made a significant investment to come and study in the UK. My first year in Leicester left me with a profoundly good impression of the university, the city and the UK as a whole. I was impressed with the level of professionalism, organisation and quality of teaching that was provided. I felt like I had gotten my money’s worth by coming here. I went home to Canada in the summer of my first year, 2017, hoping that my second, and final, year would exceed my expectations.
The second year of my studies was indeed different, but not for the reasons that I and my fellow students expected it to be. With almost a month remaining of our last semester, many professors at the university, and the rest of England, decided to go on strike. This was devastating. It was nearing the exam season and we were not sure how this would affect us. We knew there was a good chance this strike would happen and the professors had warned us, but they and the administration did nothing to prepare.
When the strike did finally occur, we had no idea which teachers were striking and which were continuing with their classes. We would spend hours preparing for tutorials only to find out the day before that they would be cancelled. We would get up early or prepare for an afternoon class only to be told 10 minutes before that it was to be cancelled. We felt like the walking dead, with no sense of direction or purpose.
It felt like a betrayal from the professors, as their issue – their pension – was not with us students, but with the administration. It felt like they took their problem and made it students’ problem as well. They could have taken other courses of action rather than depriving us of classes and the services we had paid for. We had no control over our tuition fees, yet we were being held hostage because they were being held hostage. The administration did little to prepare. When the strikes were announced, class schedules were not changed and tutorials were not rearranged. Topics in classes were not fully covered as some professors decided midway through to join the industrial action.
My colleagues and I expected some sort of tuition rebate for the classes and tutorials that were cancelled, so I held off paying my fees until this was arranged. Instead, all I got was a phone call threatening to remove me from the programme if tuition was not paid in full by a certain date. I felt more like a customer than a student, and it felt as if minimal effort was put into preparing students for the strike.
This all resulted in widespread uncertainty and frustration. We were unsure if we would have to stay longer in the UK to take our exams or what topics would be covered. We had already made such an investment in studying, as well as in renting flats and other living expenses. In the end, the professors never returned to the lecture halls. I expected my final days at the University of Leicester to end with a “last hurrah” but it was nothing short of disappointment. This is why I have signed up for the class-action suit seeking compensation for lost teaching time.
We paid a significant amount for an education we did not fully receive. We invested a small fortune to come here and expected to receive a quality education from “a top 1% world university”, as it likes to claim, but we were let down. If you had asked me at the end of my first year whether I would have recommended coming here, I would have said definitely. Since this strike action and the way it was handled, I would not recommend it.
• Milan Vaskovic is a final-year LLB Canadian student at the University of Leicester
