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There is no more certain way to exacerbate the higher education pay dispute than for a few vice-chancellors to interfere in what is a UK-wide multi-union action. If they dock the pay of academics involved in the assessment boycott, the result is to turn an activity that will be merely suspended into one that has not been paid for. The academics involved would not then be obliged to catch up once the dispute is over.

There is no reason, either, why they should not set their own price on what would then be, to coin a phrase, a voluntary activity.

The money coming into the coffers from tuition fees, or, in Wales, the Assembly Grant, is being paid against the vice-chancellors'

claim that institutions need to invest in the driving force of the academy - the academic staff. Dear vice-chancellors, stop wasting time and use the money for the purpose for which it was intended.

Andrew Morgan President, Swansea AUT