Some of the struggles [we face] are the same and the way we find solutions to problems are similar, so I wanted to find a way to make people reflect and think ‘maybe we aren’t that different’.
"Putting students into a different category - she says - really doesn’t help; I guess that my take is that over the years we have otherised the students as people with different attributes – some of them may be positive but some of them not so much, like how they don’t stick to deadlines” she laughs, “and they always ask for more and they just want to party and have fun, but if you think about it we’re exactly the same! I want to have fun, too, and sometimes it’s impossible to stick strictly to my own deadlines – we have very similar struggles!”
Stemming from this idea, Eleri asked Vera if she thought that the rising tuition fees had anything to do with this dynamic between students and teachers. She explained to us that it has certainly resulted in a changed perception. It has become the perception that students are like customers; because we have started to pay more it means that we expect more too. And it’s true! We as students are very demanding in a time where more people are enrolling in universities than ever before, and we have come to take what we get for granted. She underlined how some students had even asked to be repaid for the teaching they had missed during the teaching strikes that affected the Uni, having completely failed to reflect upon the gravity of the reason that staff had decided to strike in the first place. One positive thing that has come out of this changed perception, she explained, is that the needs of students are now more at the centre of what our teachers do.
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