(Published on Wednesday 23rd September)

The last six months have had a huge detrimental impact on students. The global pandemic has changed every facet of student life, and there have been really specific changes for some of our students needing extra support. A key example of this was the cancellation of international field trips that were due to take place from March 2020 onwards. These trips are extremely important, and this component allows students to get to the ground to understand what they have been studying in real-world terms. Due to international field trip fees being a component of the composite tuition fees, the university found it difficult to decouple these from the wider fee regime. The complications were made worse by Government advice for universities not to issue any tuition fee refunds.  

As officers, we get to work in close partnership with many senior members of staff across the University, and this partnership has been all the more important during this time. We have worked hard to ensure fees for cancelled international field trips' should be refunded to students. Following final agreement, I am pleased to say The University have now paid the 100% direct cost of the international field trip fees back to 436 students at the tune of £400,000. It is worth to note that some field trip took place before March 2020. 

Non-final year undergraduate students whose trip got cancelled will get their trips rescheduled for this academic year (if Covid19 makes it possible), to ensure that they still get the experience that is expected. We understand the shortcomings/disappointments for some of our students on their inability to embark on their field trips. We believe in putting your health and safety first and we are still in touch with continuing students and the university to see the possible and safest options available in delivering the international field trips for our students who have it as part of their programmes.

Thank you.

You can always get in touch with me on the following:

Email: gensec.su@manchester.ac.uk
Twitter: @asamoahpeters
Facebook: Kwame Asamoah Kwarteng SU
Instagram: @asamoahpeters