BRITISH UNIVERSITIES have recently raised concerns about the lack of funding for postgraduate degrees. Just as undergraduate students have had to face rises in the cost of their degrees, postgraduate fees have also risen by 11% this year.

The Vice-Chancellor of Southampton University, Professor Don Nutbeam, argued, “The changes to the funding of undergraduate education and the subsequent rise in undergraduate fees in England will inevitably lead to a rise in postgraduate fees.”

Universities such as Cardiff, Queen Mary and Exeter have spoken out about the issue, worried that increases in fees and a fall in the number of research grants and scholarships will mean fewer students will consider postgraduate study in the future. From 2010- 2011 the number of postgraduate students fell by 8,000.

Oxford University advises students to expect postgraduate degree fees to go up every year. However, scholarships are often available, with 62 per cent of graduate research students and 17 per cent of students on taught master’s degrees receiving full scholarship funding.

A spokesperson for the University told Cherwell, “Oxford University believes strongly that better provision for postgraduate funding is necessary to attract the best postgraduate students regardless of personal means – lack of funding is a barrier to widening access and puts the UK at a competitive disadvantage compared to many of our international peers.”

OUSU is also concerned about access to postgraduate funding. Chris Gray, OUSU Graduate Officer told Cherwell, “The ongoing crisis in access to postgraduate education in the UK is preventing a large number of potential students, including some of the brightest candidates, from enrolling.

“This problem needs a national solution as a further degree provides a huge career ad­vantage for those who are wealthy enough to purchase one.

“This inequality will only intensify when those British students now paying £9,000 come to finish their undergraduate degrees, and are unwilling to burden themselves with even more debt.

“We all know people who have been unable to afford to continue their education due to high fees and the lack of funding. OUSU has been campaigning for years for increased postgraduate funding in Oxford, and last term the University responded with a new £100m campaign.”

The £100m campaign was an­nounced at the annual oration to the University in October by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Hamilton. The money raised will go towards improving funding for postgraduate degrees.

The Vice-Chancellor focused on the issue of access to postgraduate study during his oration. He stated, “The health of the UK’s research base depends critically on the supply of talented graduates.

“Research students in particular are the engine of groundbreaking experimentation, and just as they are drawn to working here with leading academics, so too are we able to re­cruit the best academics because of the quality of Oxford’s research stu­dents.”

He also cautioned about the effect of declining graduate study, com­menting, “In addition, and no less valuably, they enhance the intellec­tual life of the collegiate University, and they provide a considerable pro­portion of the next generation of aca­demic leadership both in the UK and internationally.”

Professor Nutbeam also expressed concern for the future. He claimed that without addressing the issues concerning postgraduate funding, “we will not meet the evolving future needs of our advanced economy.”

Oxford students have expressed concern about the issues surround­ing postgraduate funding. Eve Worth, a graduate student at Brasenose, told Cherwell, “My parents can’t help me with money so this is a big issue for me. I think it is especially a big prob­lem in the humanities. It is much harder to get funded for a master’s in humanities than a PhD, and it is much harder to get funded for any­thing in humanities than social sci­ences or science: I have not met a sin­gle humanities master’s student with funding at Oxford.”

She continued, “I am thinking of going to Australia or America to do my PhD because of the funding is­sues – and I am not the only first-class honours graduate I know consider­ing this option. The UK is losing good students because of this funding de­bacle.”

Balliol student Rosanna Holds­worth also commented, “I’m think­ing about postgraduate study. I’m waiting to see if the funding situa­tion improves but it could be an issue for me in the future.”

Currently 50 per cent of all mas­ter’s degrees in the UK are undertak­en by overseas students, who often pay considerably more than home students.

OVER 50 PROTESTERS turned out against BNP chairman and MEP Nick Griffin last night. An invitation to Mr Griffin to speak at the Union debate was rescinded on Monday, but Mr Grif­fin later tweeted, “If I get back from parliament I’ll go anyway. As a life member of the Cam­bridge Union I have reciprocal membership.”

Union officials confirmed that they would not have acted to keep Mr Griffin out, had he come to Thursday’s debate. However, Griffin did not come, claiming on Twitter, “Unfortu­nately delay from freezing fog in central France means I’m too late to drop in on the debate. An­other time maybe ;)”

The Oxford branch of Unite Against Fascism (UAF) organised the protest, chanting “Oxford Union hear us shout, homophobes and fascists out.” Various groups were present, with one campaigner claiming that students from Ox­ford, Oxford Brookes and Ruskin College were there, as well as trade unionists and townspeo­ple.

Mr Griffin was originally invited to speak in opposition to the motion ‘This House Would be Glad to Have Gay Parents’, although Union officials claim that the invitation was sent by a rogue member of Secretary’s Committee, now facing “disciplinary action”, without approval from “the President or any other senior mem­ber of the Union committee.”

A press release from the Union also stated: “The Oxford Union does not wish to be associ­ated with the BNP in any way whatsoever. We strongly disagree with their views.”

Ian McKendrick, Secretary of Oxford UAF, said, “We were told that Nick Griffin had been invited, so we stepped up to the mark. We’re against any platform for fascists; it only incites people who support them to come out onto the streets, which is very dangerous. We’re not pre­pared to dick around, so we thought it would be better to err on the side of caution and have some kind of presence to challenge him.” He claimed that if Griffin were to turn up, “We’ll try to physically prevent him from entering.”

Of Griffin’s previous appearance at the Union in 2007, McKendrick said, “I think they learnt last time round how strongly people felt about this. It was 1500 people here; you couldn’t move. It was a massive turnout.”

Nick Evans, a PhD student at Wadham, ac­cused Griffin of “hurling homophobic hate speech”. He said, “When a fascist gets up on a platform, it’s not just a question of free speech; it’s a question of the fact that their organisa­tion will use that platform to encourage vio­lence against LGBT, minorities, and trade un­ionists.”

Sam Hollick, Green councillor for Holywell ward, said, “I’m not protesting against free­dom of speech. I think Nick Griffin has plenty of opportunities himself to publicise his own views. It is wrong for the Oxford Union to try and give a platform to someone who has such a fringe and offensive view.”

The Union was forced to draft in two replace­ment speakers after Scott Lively, controversial­ly linked to the anti-gay movement in Uganda, and Winston McKenzie, the UKIP spokesperson who described same-sex adoption as “child abuse”, pulled out of Thursday’s debate at the last minute.

GEORGE GALLOWAY faced a small protest by the Oxford Feminist Network when he arrived last Friday to give a talk to the Oxford University Pakistan Society.

The talk, which focused on the Arab Spring, was entitled “The Middle East in Turmoil: Causes and Consequences”. It was held at St Antony’s College and approximately 40 people attended.

OFN protested at the pedestrian entrance to St Antony’s on Winchester Road, whereas Galloway entered the college through the vehicular entrance on Bevington Road. The protest was sparked by Galloway’s controversial comments over the summer, in which he said Julian Assange would at most be guilty of “bad sexual etiquette” rather than rape, since the two women involved were “already in the sex game”.

A spokesperson for the OFN said, “Responses from passers-by and those going into the talk ranged from ambivalence to support,” They continued. “Faced by direct, polite questioning about his ability to differentiate consent and rape and asking him to define ‘the sex game’, Galloway hid under his hat and refused even to acknowledge our presence.”

Galloway’s Chief of Staff, Rob Hoveman, denied that this was the case, “There was no questioning of George by the Oxford Feminist Network because he had no contact with them.” Hoveman also denied that there were as many as half a dozen protesters, claiming, “There were two, and then, I think, a third woman by an entrance of St Antony’s that George didn’t enter by. It’s not quite what I would call a picket.”

The University Pakistan Society had planned to hold a conference, with Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, a Kashmiri political leader, as their keynote speaker. However, there were delays in granting him a visa, so the conference was cancelled and the decision was made to replace it with an address by George Galloway. Galloway spoke about Tunisia and the election of an Islamist party there, Egypt, and the question of Syria in the context of a history of Western imperialism.

Hoveman claimed, “The meeting was very successful and lasted for an hour and a half. Everyone who was there enjoyed it; that was the impression from the applause. The talk finished at 12.30pm but numerous people wanted to continue the discussion informally afterwards.”

Questions were only allowed on the subject of the Middle East. President of OU Pakistan Society Rinchan Mirza confirmed, “Galloway was only here to talk about the Middle East. We briefed him beforehand, and I would moderate any questions on any other topics,” Nevertheless, Hoveman said, “George made it clear to the organisers of the meeting that he was willing to answer questions on any topic from anybody.”

The address was open to everybody. OFN did not attend the talk itself but nevertheless voiced their support for the topic of the Pakistani Society’s talk. The same OFN spokesperson stated, “With the upcoming protest about Assange’s video link speech at the Union, OFN is clear that there is never an excuse for propagating rape myths.

Galloway’s claims that consent is not needed for every sex act is not only dangerous but plain wrong. We would encourage Mr Galloway to make clear that he was wrong, that he does understand the law on consent, and that he is truly sorry for his previous comments.”

Hoveman said of Galloway’s controversial remarks: “The Oxford Feminist Network seemed to be chanting ‘no means no’, which George fully agrees with. He has responded to misunderstandings about his comments on Julian Assange ad nauseam over the past few months.”

Because of Galloway’s comments regarding Julian Assange, the National Union of Students recently banned George Galloway from NUS events and affiliated student unions, such as OUSU. However, the ban does not have to be heeded by individual university societies, since they are not individually affiliated with the NUS.

Galloway has frequently courted controversy over his political career, initially as a member of the Labour Party, but now as member of Respect. He is currently MP for Bradford West, a seat he won in a 2012 by-election.

RESEARCHERS AT the Oxford Internet Institute have been exploring what geotagged tweets can reveal about the offline world. The research has led them to create a Twitter map to try and un­derstand the link between the club football fans support and the places where they live.

The data included all geocoded tweets men­tioning any of the Premier League football teams and their associated hashtags, (for exam­ple #MUFC) that were sent between 18th August and 19th December 2012. The tweets were then matched to postal codes in order to map a fairly detailed geography of results.

The data shows that contrary to popular be­lief Manchester City is not the “real” local team and that Mancunians support both the city team and Manchester United. Only a few parts of Greater Manchester showed significantly more tweets mentioning Manchester City over their local rivals.

The team at the Oxford Institute for Internet were also able to map the Merseyside rivalry be­tween Liverpool and Everton. The twitter map shows that while Liverpool is slightly more pop­ular in the postcode that is home to both team’s stadiums, there is no clear divide in the rest of the region.

Examining the map in more detail, and look­ing at specific postcodes, the researchers were able to see which teams are most mentioned there. Interestingly, Oxford academics men­tioned Manchester City more than any other team.

On the Oxford Internet Institute website the team of researchers commented, “There is no doubt that using Tweets as a proxy for fandom is messy and not always reliable. But, the data does give us a rough sense of who is interested in – or at least talking about – what, and where they are doing it from.” The authors added, “It allows to begin to counter myths, for example that Mancunians don’t support Manchester United, develop new insights about places that we don’t necessarily have good data about, and most importantly, have some guesses as to which team the Queen might support.”

Previously the research has focused on geo-located tweets about floods and earthquakes. They also tracked racist comments during Oba­ma’s election in order to see what mapping the data would reveal. Whilst the researchers were measuring tweets rather than people, it was es­tablished that there are some fairly strong clus­tering of hate tweets centred in southeastern US states. These states had a much higher rate than the national average.

In an article for the Guardian’s Data Blog, the authors of the research concluded, “the unfor­tunate fact is that most states are not immune from this kind of activity. Racist behaviour, par­ticularly directed at African Americans in the US, is all too easy to find both offline and in in­formation space.”

One of the researchers, Dr Mark Graham com­mented, “This method could be used for much wider purposes: possibly, in times of crisis we could see what was being said on the social me­dia site about hurricanes or riots to see what was actually happening ‘offline’ in certain areas of the country. This is exploratory work into the digital shadows we create, and the full poten­tial of its applications has yet to be realised.”