To the Oxford Chemistry Department

The petition of the students of the Oxford Chemistry Department

declares that the Department should not continue with its current plan to issue redundancy to a significant number of its departmental teaching staff (DLs) and replace them with junior demonstrators (JDs).

The petitioners therefore request that the Department of Chemistry:

a)      Listens to student feedback imparted to them on numerous occasions; we have repeatedly stipulated that we do not want to be taught by JDs, as the standard of teaching provided is subpar. Due to time and commitment constraints incurred by concurrently completing a PhD, the JDs are not as familiar with the labs they supervise, often not completing the lab prior to supervising it for their singular day a week – unlike the DLs, who work the lab 4 days a week – and are unfamiliar with both issues that may arise within them and the associated signoffs. Students have on numerous occasions been given incorrect and/or conflicting information by JDs.  As well as this, JDs do not have the extensive experience of the DLs in differentiating for the learning needs of SEND students (see (c) below).

b)      Considers, therefore, that employing students is not a substitute for DLs who are experienced and focussed on their jobs.

c)       Recognises in particular that the redundancy without replacement of the CTL EDI representative puts any SEND students at a significant, unavoidable and unacceptable disadvantage. The DLs have done an excellent job in supporting such students through methods such as assigning LSAs, modifying laboratory and signoff conditions and generally prioritising the learning of the student; PhD students would not have the capacity to do this.

d)      Recognises that the CTL has won prestigious awards for the quality of the education it delivers, and that making the people responsible for this redundant as a cost cutting measure is unacceptable.

e)      Recognises that there exist alternative cost cutting measures, which do not have such detrimental consequences to HR and the education of the chemistry students, which ought to be the teaching department’s priority. The student body demands that the Department consider at the very least decreasing the scale of the redundancies to reduce the effect they will have.

f)        Hosts an open panel for students to be able to ask questions of the department and discuss the ongoing redundancy events. The student body is not appreciative of being blindsided by this significant decision regarding our education, and attempts to raise this at the CJCC, as would be the appropriate initial place for discussion, were shut down.

g)      Releases a formal statement of what they are doing and their justifications for the student body to read, as once again the student body is unimpressed by the Department’s bureaucratic lack of transparency on this matter. Such a decision should have been clearly communicated to and discussed with the student body from the start as it impacts us almost more than anyone else.

And the petitioners remain, etc.