Higher Education in the UK and its inability to respond to the crisis

As people are trying to come to terms with the pandemic of the coronavirus, we are told that we are all in the same boat. Higher Education in the UK is no exception in this respect. Messages by key university administrators attempt to instil a collective ‘we’ feeling in view of the challenges ahead. And yet, while staff work extra hours up and down the country to facilitate the shift to online teaching, leading universities have already started to lay off employees. It is the most vulnerable colleagues first, those on fixed-term, often zero hours contracts, who are told at short notice that their services are no longer required. How can we understand these, at first sight, contradictory tendencies?

Photo by Geoff  Whalan