Over 70 King’s students held a rally on Tuesday 20^th October to protest against the cuts being made across all departments at their university.

Several students walked out of lectures 10 minutes early to symbolise the 10% cuts which are being proposed. The group marched across Waterloo Bridge to the Principal’s office and back, holding signs which read ‘No Cuts at King’s – Open the Books’ and chanting “No ifs, no buts, no education cuts”.

The protest was organised by the ‘No Cuts@King’s’ campaign and attended by many Engineering students, upset at the planned closure of their department.

Lynda Nwike, a third year mechanical Engineering student, said “Management are earning crazy amounts while students are being penalised for no valid reason. Why can’t they survive on less than £100,000?”

“Engineering was neglected and never invested in, so that eventually to do anything significant would have taken £50 million pounds, but they put themselves in that position and then only look to short-term solutions. Chemistry was taken away before because it was making a loss, but if you look at outstanding universities they maintain all these departments.”

A source working in Information Resources also told London Student that 30 staff working in Information Services and Systems (ISS) had been told in mid-April that they must re-apply for 15 new posts. Those whose re-applications are not successful will be served with redundancy notice November 2^nd.

Ryan Wain, KCLSU President, said that the student union was doing what it could to “facilitate and support” the students who wished to protest.

A King’s spokesperson said “Along with the vast majority of universities, the College has great concerns about the impact of the financial crisis on future public spending levels and a reduction in funding for higher education. It is therefore taking steps to address these concerns. Any cuts that might ensue are not intended to have an adverse impact on the student experience; indeed, the College expects to enhance the student experience in coming years.”

The ‘No Cuts@King’s’ campaign state that further job losses in the Diversity and Equality department and in catering are likely to follow, and will hold another protest on Monday 2^nd November.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 12:46 and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.