Happy staff means happy students. However, Northumbria University wants to cut the teaching preparation time by 50% for hard-working, highly-skilled, and dedicated staff in its Language Centre. This will have a huge impact on staff working conditions and student learning experiences. It will have a disproportionate and divisive effect on staff who do lots of teaching. It will also have a disproportionate and divisive effect on the many international students who learn with and are supported by the Language Centre to develop their English Language and Study Skills. Why should they be taught by people with less time to prepare than other staff? 

Under these plans, staff will only have 30 minutes to prepare for one hour of teaching (instead of an hour's preparation for an hour's teaching as at present). This means that if you currently teach 14 hours a week (with 14 hours preparation), you would in future have only 7 hours of preparation time, with 7 hours now reassigned to complete new duties and tasks. This means you’d potentially be doing more work, with less time, for the same pay.  

Staff teaching in the area have been polled and none want this change. Students – largely international students – pay a lot of money for the support and tuition they receive from the Language Centre, and do not deserve this change.  If you think that staff and students in the Northumbria Language Centre should not be made to suffer because of this change, and that Northumbria University should change its mind on these plans, please sign and share this petition.