A UNIVERSITY marking boycott, that could have seen as many as 80 per cent of students at Farnham's University College for the Creative Arts unable to graduate this year, was brought to an end on Tuesday, but the deal has left union members "disappointed" at what they believe is a quick fix to a problem that won't disappear. The University College Union (UCU), a recent merger of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) and the Association of University Teachers (AUT), arrived at the deal only a week after lecturers at UCCA were threatened with drastic pay cuts for continuing in the boycott of exam marking. Settling for a raise of 10.37 per cent over 22 months, the deal didn't come close to the 20 per cent over three years that the union was seeking. Martin Pover, chairman of the Farnham branch of UCU, was unhappy with the outcome of the negotiations, saying: "There's going to be a further review of what universities can actually afford to pay staff, so we may well end up back in the same position again in a couple of years' time." He went on to describe how university lecturers in Britain are "among the worst paid in the world" and that the issue had been "fudged," adding: "The quality of lecturing is at stake here, and because of this the problem now won't go away." Sally Hunt, UCU joint general secretary, said: "Sometimes as a negotiator you have to recomment domething which you think falls short of what you think the people you represent deserve. We have achieved something, but not enough in my opinion and one reason for this is the utter failure of our current national negotiating structures to work effectively. The original failure to reach any kind of agreement presented as many as 1,500 students in Farnham with the daunting prospect of not receiving any marks this year and not knowing the results of their degrees until September. The acceptance of the new pay offer has calmed the minds of many of Farnham's students, providing a break from the worry of not graduating. Davide Cinzi, a third-year film student at the college, was grateful for the end to the dispute and hoped he would receive his marks soon as he will be travelling back to his native Italy next month. He summed up the feelings of many, saying: "It's good that they've reached a decision on this at last. We still haven't received a mark for things that were submitted in February. "I was a bit worried about not getting a mark for my degree but hopefully now that it's over I can get my grades to take home with me and we can all still graduate."
