University marking strike leaves students in limbo. Ministers must intervene to help – Christine Jardine

Thousands of young people starting out in life face graduating without a degree result

Graduation is supposed to be a joyous occasion (Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

It’s longer ago now than I care to admit but the memory of edging through the crowd to see my degree results on the university noticeboard still makes me smile. I’ve also been on the other side of degree decision-making and know the work involved for the staff.

As a lecturer in journalism and in law for journalists, I spent many long hours grading work and compiling what I hoped was helpful feedback. There was also what, over the years, I began to regard as the torture of exam boards where results were discussed and scrutinised for fairness and consistency.

There were awards which disappointed me, others with which I was delighted, when a student’s performance fulfilled a potential they had never been confident about. Most of all there was satisfaction that another cohort of young people had successfully completed the qualifications which would propel them into their chosen careers.

What must it be like this year? To have worked for four years, taken on debt, coped with Covid restrictions, with the promise of results that would open the door to the career and life to which you aspire, only to be let down? Even if you’re sympathetic to the cause.

To be fair to the marking staff taking strike action, many of their careers have been increasingly threatened by funding issues in higher education. A pay and conditions dispute sounds like a justification for a political stance. But in reality that translates into meeting the changed demands on their income created by the cost-of-living crisis. Put simply, paying their bills.

Theirs is not a dispute that has gleaned the emotive media coverage of health, rail or public service workers. The perception seems to be that not marking university exams is a victimless strike. That it will not cost lives or damage the economy. That is perhaps true in the short term, but not long term.

I have evidence in my own workplace of a student, due to graduate this year. Without the results he was expecting, his postgraduate place and a paid internship at parliament are in doubt. The internship we can sort, but for the foreign students who play such an increasingly important role in our economy and health service, that can mean no visa.

Without that, the investment in training, the skills we have nurtured will be lost to another country. Over time our ability as a nation to look after our health, teach our children and grow our economy will all be undermined. Lives could be lost, our economy damaged.

And a generation whose education was undermined by Covid, whose ability to buy a house was torpedoed by mortgage rises and whose prospects of a better quality of life than their parents has been destroyed will face another blow.

Our governments surely need to do something to help. Just this once, let this generation feel their future is being safeguarded. The piece of paper that held my future all those years ago is going to be literally blank for many young people when they graduate. It is supposed to be a day to celebrate with friends and family, to look back at everything achieved. Yet they will not know what that is. What’s the point?

Christine Jardine is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West