Efforts to revoke the three session per year model, introduced in 2012, are ramping up with the first meeting kicking off a bargaining process between UNE management and the union held on Monday.

“Those bargaining teams will get together and negotiate back and forth,” NTEU New England Branch President Margaret Sims told The Express.

“Our current agreement expires later this year and we have to bargain for a new agreement.

“We have spent quite a lot of time consulting with our members across all schools about the issues that really concern them and those that they want us to fight for.

“What came up unanimously in all of our meetings was concern around the trimesters.”

Ms Sims said there was serious concern among staff over the impacts trimesters were having on teaching and learning.

“As far as our members are concerned they [trimesters] are not working for staff or students,” she said.

“We’ve been asked by our members to make that the primary focus for our local claims.”

Union Branch Vice-President Kelvin McQueen dubbed trimesters as “one of the biggest disasters ever perpetrated on UNE and on the town of Armidale”.

A spokesperson from UNE said trimesters were introduced in response to student demand for degrees to be more flexible.

“In any large organisation, there are pockets of stagnant culture that are slow to adapt to change,” the spokesperson said. 

“UNE remains committed to a student-centric model and the innovative delivery of its courses.”