The University of Birmingham has just released it’s annual accounts which reveal Vice Chancellor David Eastwood has received a 7% pay rise and now earns £419,000 a year. It seems the university will fund this pay rise by saving money on staff cuts and closing courses such as Biological Recording. The School of Biosciences has recently announced that it will cease to host the 'Biological Recording and Species Identification' programmes (UCert, PG Cert, PG Dip, MSc and day schools). A petition has been set up  http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/biorec_bham/ to save the course. The Course had built up a reputation of providing the best foundation in identification skills available with students prepared to travel from all over the UK.

Eastwood actively supported the Government plans for tuition fee rises, in fact he played a key role in forming those plans as he was a member of the Browne review. Unsurprisingly he will be raising undergraduate tuition fees at the University of Birmingham to the maximum of £9000, in spite of the fact that the operating surplus at the University has grown by 21% to £27m.