The class of 2023: the UK’s unluckiest students
Many of the students who began their studies under Covid restrictions are now leaving university without knowing their grades. Anna Fazackerley reports
“I do not hold a degree in my hand,” Alex Mohan Morzeria-Davis told their fellow students in a speech on graduation day. “Instead, I hold an apology letter filled with platitudes and a list of courses with the letters TBC instead of a mark next to them.”
Mohan Morzeria-Davis, a student at the University of Edinburgh, is one of many students across the country whose final papers have not been marked. After starting their studies under Covid restrictions, this year group has faced many disruptions to their courses. Now they are graduating without a mark and a pile of student debt.
The University and College Union (UCU), which represents many UK university lecturers, is engaged in a marking boycott over pay and working conditions. Mohan Morzeria-Davis and fellow students David Popelka and Jess Leigh discuss the impact the boycott has had on them. And the journalist Anna Fazackerley tells Michael Safi what the strike is about and why the funding of universities has become so precarious.
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