{"id":6986,"date":"2026-02-27T15:17:01","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T15:17:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/?p=6986"},"modified":"2026-02-28T20:03:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T20:03:26","slug":"unprecedented-plans-to-axe-small-courses-approved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/news\/2026\/02\/27\/unprecedented-plans-to-axe-small-courses-approved\/","title":{"rendered":"Unprecedented plans to axe small courses approved"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>by Fred Byrne &amp; Innes Paton.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Less popular courses could be axed, and staff teaching such courses could be forced to leave.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">University Court approved proposals to cut courses and programmes with lower student numbers and to stop recruitment to smaller postgraduate programmes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The announcement comes under senior management plans to save or generate \u00a312 million at University of Aberdeen over the next two years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Approved plans include:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A minimum of 10 students on all undergraduate or postgraduate programmes.<\/li>\n<li>A minimum of 20 students for each staff member in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering &amp; Mathematics) courses.<\/li>\n<li>A minimum of 25 students for each staff member in SHAPE (Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts for People and the Economy) courses.<\/li>\n<li>To immediately stop recruitment to postgraduate taught programmes that have consistently recruited fewer than six students.<\/li>\n<li>Moving from a 12 school structure to four faculties.<\/li>\n<li>Centralising the administration teams for all schools.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is understood that a significant number of courses and programmes do not meet the minimum student threshold, and may face cuts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This will likely spark fear amongst academics given that Principal Edwards has refused to rule out compulsory redundancies, which encouraged UCU (University and College Union) Aberdeen to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/news\/2026\/02\/26\/strike-dates-announced-for-march\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">announce <\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">numerous strike dates for March.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Senior management presented the proposals to Court &#8211; the institution&#8217;s governing body &#8211; who gave the plans their stamp of approval on Wednesday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Under the university\u2019s so-called \u2018Adapting for Continued Success\u2019 <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/news\/2025\/10\/21\/large-scale-transformation-plan-to-consider-all-aspects-of-university-operations\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">programme<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, senior management aim to break-even from a \u00a34.3 million current deficit by 2028.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cuts under this plan will be finalised by University Court on April 29th once senior management have \u201cworked through the impact and benefits of each element.\u201d Ahead of that, staff may raise questions about the proposals in Town Hall meetings on March 11th March and April 22nd.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dan Cutts, UCU Aberdeen chair, calls the proposals \u2018\u2018extremely shocking and extremely stressful for staff,\u201d adding, \u201cit\u2019s a continuation of a crisis that just won\u2019t end&#8221; where 443 staff have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pressandjournal.co.uk\/fp\/news\/6943261\/aberdeen-university-sheds-staff\/\">left<\/a> in the last two years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says it seems that university officials are \u201cputting the building blocks in place for the inevitability of compulsory redundancies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mr Cutts is optimistic that the minds of decision makers could change, saying: \u201dWe are 100% committed to pushing back on anything that will lead to compulsory redundancies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>University of Aberdeen declined to share how many courses or programmes could be affected by approved proposals. A spokesperson told us:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe University is exploring a range of measures to help tackle its deficit, make it more resilient and create capacity for investment and growth. We\u2019re consulting with staff and campus trade unions ahead of any decisions being taken by our University Court in April.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite numerous and persistent requests, <i>The Gaudie<\/i> has been unable to schedule an interview with new Principal Professor Pete Edwards since his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/news\/2025\/10\/13\/professor-pete-edwards-announced-as-new-principal\/\">appointment <\/a>in November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Fred Byrne &amp; Innes Paton. Less popular courses could be axed, and staff teaching such courses could be forced to leave. University Court approved proposals to cut courses and programmes with lower student numbers and to stop recruitment to smaller postgraduate programmes. The announcement comes under senior management plans to save or generate \u00a312 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":6987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","iawp_total_views":221,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[254,206,1011,1452,1426,1279,183],"wf_post_folders":[181],"class_list":["post-6986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-aberdeen","tag-aberdeen-university","tag-court","tag-dan-cutts","tag-pete-edwards","tag-ucu","tag-university-of-aberdeen"],"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Gaudie Staff","author_link":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/author\/gaudie-staff\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Abdn-Uni-9-of-9-300x271.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/s\/news\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">News<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">News<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/s\/news\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Aberdeen<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/s\/news\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Aberdeen University<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/s\/news\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">court<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/s\/news\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Dan Cutts<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/s\/news\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">pete edwards<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/s\/news\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">UCU<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/s\/news\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">University of Aberdeen<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Aberdeen<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Aberdeen University<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">court<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Dan Cutts<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">pete edwards<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">UCU<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">University of Aberdeen<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 7 months ago","modified":"Updated 7 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on 27 February 2026","modified":"Updated on 28 February 2026"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on 27 February 2026 15:17","modified":"Updated on 28 February 2026 20:03"},"featured_img_caption":"Old Aberdeen campus (Photo: Antonni James Numminen)","series_order":"","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6986"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7000,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6986\/revisions\/7000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6986"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=6986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}