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Dear Professor Vandelinde, Professor Bone, and the Minister for Higher Education Bill Rammell,

I am writing to formally lodge a complaint about the standard of my education at the University of Warwick.

I find it highly unacceptable that the Universities are stalling negotiations with the AUT on pay issues and instead threatening staff with a 20% pay dock. The University is not doing anything to address the issue, merely trying to intimidate the staff into accepting what is less than they deserve. It is disheartening that in the UK, teachers are not given much respect even though they play an integral part in molding the future of the country, if not the world.

As an international student paying a large sum of £8,700 this year (which will increase each year) for tuition fees, I am appalled that I am not receiving the full educational experience that I should rightly get. Just as one should get a refund on unsatisfactory service, I demand that international students get a refund of fees since the service we have paid for has not been up to standard nor in any way complete.

This matter has dragged on longer than we students have been willing to tolerate and it is unfair that our degrees are being jeopardised. I understand that because of the strike, many of the papers are being outsorced to be set and marked and this is unfair to students because external academics are unaware of what has been taught or focussed on throughout the entire year and we are penalised by having papers that are vastly different from past years' and graded differently. How are we to be certain that the grades we attain at the end of our degrees are an acurate reflection of the work we have done throughout our time as students in the University? This brings to question even the validity of the degree and the value of the degree to future employers within the country and back home. This is especially distressing to an international student who has become disillusioned with the education system in the UK and I am having serious doubts if the money I have paid for my education has in fact been a wise and good inverstment. My parents have been saving for the last 10 years so that I can have an university education in the UK and I believe that many of my international peers share similar backgrounds. I ask that you put an end to the dispute over lecturers pay and restore the full educational experience that I deserve or else do something to redress us international students.

Yours sincerely,
Adeline Li