So UCT - pardon, this is its OUTM persona, wethinks - has got itself into a bit of a jam concerning student numbers, as a result of the changed (we make no value judgements here...) secondary educational system learner evaluation and the unexpectedly high results, has it??

As in - a flood of people coming in, with the same to happen next year...and having to sit on the floor in lecture theatres, or not to get in at all, despite our now having the highest fees in the land.

I know what I'd [in a collective sense] be saying if I were an irate parent footing the bill, for my offspring not to be being educated in the manner to which I'd thought he/she was entitled, me having parted with all that moolah and all - and it would have the words "rip-off" and "unacceptable" and "Stellenbosch" in it.

So what, pray, is OUTM planning on doing about it?  Why, Mr Price is saying things like we need to grow to where the DoE thinks we should be - something about 24 000 students and up - and Deans and the like are muttering about doubling up lectures, having lectures and practicals at night so as to fit everyone in...because OUTM isn't going to suddenly find a whole lot more venues, is it?  And they're probably not thinking of building any nice big ones, either, given the creeping managerialism that has overtaken this once academic institution and its obsession with cost-saving, so extra lectures and prac/tutorial sessions are probably the way it's going to go.

But has anyone given thought, down there in the Belly of the Beast, to what this will do to academic staff workloads?  Because surely, as much as we aren't suddenly going to get more venues, we are also not going to get a sudden influx of new staff, either.

And that will mean...having to come in in the evenings.  Having considerably increased lecture loads.  Having to have practical sessions, in the wet and dry sciences and engineering, at night - with all of the technical staff required for health and safety backup there as well.

Has OUTM considered, possibly, that all this will drastically affect research productivity, given those that lead this will now increasingly be occupied doing the other thing?   Have they also - and perhaps more importantly for the bottom line - considered that this will require changes to conditions of service in their contracts for all concerned? 

Aye, there's the rub...for it may occur to some of us who will shoulder the increased workload, that lo, we are now unionised - and that the Academic and Staff Unions may have more than a little to say about this, if we urge them.

Interesting times ahead, comrades - for that is what we Union folk call one another - interesting times....

And as all good Union folk should know, we sing in solidarity with one another at meetings: so for our cybermeeting, the Retroid collective offers you something from their shared (and dim and distant past).

Slightly amended for these modern times, and our situation - The Strawbs' "Part of the Union".

Part Of The Union

by Ford/Hudson (amended, with apologies)

Now I'm a union man
Amazed at what I am
I say what I think
That [OUTM] stinks
Yes, I'm a union man.

When we meet in the [Jammie] hall
I'll be voting with them all
With a hell of a shout
It's out! Brothers, out!
And the rise of [OUTM]'s fall.

Oh, you don't get me, I'm part of the union
You don't get me, I'm part of the union
You don't get me, I'm part of the union
Till the day I die, till the day I die.

As a union man I'm wise
To the lies of the [Bremner] spies
And I don't get fooled
By the [OUTM] rules
'Cause I always read between the lines.

....

Before the union did appear
My life was half as clear
Now I've got the power
To the working hour
And every other day of the year.

So though I'm a working man
I can ruin [OUTM]'s plan
Though I'm not too hard
The sight of my card
Makes me some kind of superman.

Oh, you don't get me, I'm part of the union
You don't get me, I'm part of the union
You don't get me, I'm part of the union
Till the day I die, till the day I die....B-)