Students are said to be meeting in cafes and holding “reading groups” while faculty are on strike

University students have been urged to swap seminars for café meetings as their faculty go on strike.

Cambridge students have been urged to hold mini-reading groups to catch up on classes canceled by striking academics.

Around 70,000 members of the University and College Union (UCU) at 150 universities dropped out yesterday in a dispute over pay, working conditions and pensions.

It is the first of 18 days of strikes that critics have called “morally wrong”.

The dispute comes as the Universities and Colleges Employers’ Association, which represents 144 employers, said it had made a “full and final salary offer” of between 5 and 8 per cent.

Around 70,000 members of the University and College Union (UCU) at 150 universities dropped out yesterday in a dispute over pay, working conditions and pensions

The British Museum was forced to close yesterday after workers went on strike following a long wage dispute.

Most of the workers involved are to be understood as security guards or in visitor service.

Alan Smithers, director of the Center for Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham, said abandoning students was “morally wrong”.

He said: “Strikes are blunt, selfish and harmful, and their success depends on the exercise of brute force.

“Moralically they are wrong, but in addition, university staff must face the fact that they lack the power to hurt anyone but themselves and their students. It’s a futile gesture.’

But Jo Grady, general secretary of UCU, said: “University staff have gathered in large numbers on the picket line today. Their anger at falling wages, job insecurity and cut pensions is unmistakable.”

She added: “We have been overwhelmed by the support of thousands of students who have joined us on pickets across the country.

“They recognize that the vice chancellors are ruining the sector and are determined to stand by us and fix the problem.”