Language and a long over due rant......
Nov. 27th, 2003 10:36 amListening to the news coverage about the Queen's Speech, I keep hearing references to 'top up fees making it more difficult for children from poorer families to go to university.' Fine. I agree. Top up fees are a Very Bad Thing. But can we please get the language right: children do not go to university, adults do.
(Yes, yes, I've met many students who act like children and who don't really have the skills they need to care for themselves without Mummy to do the washing, but that does not make them children for heaven's sake.)
Oh and yes, it's time for a rant that's been brewing for a while. The NUS needs to grow up and start doing its job properly. The way the government plans are going, we need one body capable of lobbying the government effective on a whole range of issues. The NUS is not currently capable of seeing beyond the end of its latest 'Liberation Campaign*'.
Firstly, it must start allowing *all* students to join - currently Open University students cannot become members of the NUS, since it will not allow OUSA (Open University Students' Association to affiliate) (someone may wish to correct me on the details - it's possible that the very small number of full time OU students can join). Now this is an important issue, because the OU is the *biggest* university in the UK. The NUS claims to represent students as a whole, yet does not allow certain groups of students to influence its thinking. Very few part time students are allowed to join and indeed where part time students are entitled to join we receive a different coloured membership card clearly stating our part time status. Now true, some organisations may only be interested in giving offers to full time students, but should an organisation that claims to represent students throughout the country be encouraging that?
It should also think about what it offers to the students' unions that make up its membership. Mr Campbell was right when he said 'one size does not fit all'. I have seen with my own eyes the inability of the NUS to tailor its services effectively - it sends the same information to SUs regardless of their size or the likely interests of their members eg. poster templates aren't much help for well established SUs that have their own 'branding' (except perhaps where the NUS wishes to run a national campaign), cheap drinks deals aren't much use where a JCR (Junior Common Room - SU for an Oxbridge/Durham College - so fairly small) doesn't run a bar.
Further, it should devise some way to allow individual students to join regardless of the affiliation status of their school/college/university. And I'm not talking about the affiliated membership scheme - I'm talking about full membership with voting rights - which leads me on nicely to talking about the way NUS elections are held.
(Yes, I'm using 'school' in its British sense - why shouldn't any school pupil capable of understanding what the NUS is and does be allowed to join? There are plenty of issues affecting young people on which the NUS is ideally placed to campaign, building on its current work eg. bullying within schools, exam stress, structure of post 14 education, how paid work affects school work etc. I realise there are children's charities who campaign on these issues, but none of these charities are very effective at getting children to campaign for themselves.)
I'm almost, but not quite, ashamed to admit that I don't understand the process completely (NUS elections that is). In brief, students elect representatives to go to the NUS' annual conference (the number of reps being proportionate to the number of students - with some weird rules for Oxford colleges who get more representation per student). Then they get to vote for the sabbatical officers and for the 'block of 12' - a really misleading name to anyone who doesn't look a bit further to learn that those individuals work part time for the NUS on a variety of campaigns. I don't know what the criteria are for standing for the various posts. Now I'm not arguing that representatives electing officers is undemocractic (it's not, particularly when the reps can be mantaded to vote in a particular way) - I'm arguing that with the advent of the internet and, indeed, even the postal system, it would be far better from the point of view of getting individual students involved with the organisation that claims to represent them to have direct elections.
And once it's done that, it should start making forceful, effective attacks on the government. Commissioning its own research into the effects fees have had/are likely to have in the future. Yes, marching though London is a part of raising public awareness of the fees issue, but it's not and never will be an effective way to make the government change its mind.
However, as important as fees are, there are other issues important to students ignored by the NUS - how about campaigning for a right to study leave from work for those that study part time? or how about campaigning in relation to the provision of high quality vocational education/training for those who don't want to take the academic route? What about basic education for the million or so (?) people who cannot read, write or do simple maths? How about retraining for people who become unemployed mid-career?
*Liberation Campaign is the term the NUS uses for the campaigns run by Black students (their term, not mine), LGB (tsk, they've not even added the T on yet), Women (we'll have that rant another time, this one's quite long enough) and Disabilities - campaigning for the 'liberation' of these minority groups from the oppression of the majority. I don't have a problem with the existence of these groups (except for Women, but we're not going there now), because discrimination on the basis of anything other than merit is wrong, they just seem to get a bit too much attention at the expense of other issues that are equally important.
(Yes, yes, I've met many students who act like children and who don't really have the skills they need to care for themselves without Mummy to do the washing, but that does not make them children for heaven's sake.)
Oh and yes, it's time for a rant that's been brewing for a while. The NUS needs to grow up and start doing its job properly. The way the government plans are going, we need one body capable of lobbying the government effective on a whole range of issues. The NUS is not currently capable of seeing beyond the end of its latest 'Liberation Campaign*'.
Firstly, it must start allowing *all* students to join - currently Open University students cannot become members of the NUS, since it will not allow OUSA (Open University Students' Association to affiliate) (someone may wish to correct me on the details - it's possible that the very small number of full time OU students can join). Now this is an important issue, because the OU is the *biggest* university in the UK. The NUS claims to represent students as a whole, yet does not allow certain groups of students to influence its thinking. Very few part time students are allowed to join and indeed where part time students are entitled to join we receive a different coloured membership card clearly stating our part time status. Now true, some organisations may only be interested in giving offers to full time students, but should an organisation that claims to represent students throughout the country be encouraging that?
It should also think about what it offers to the students' unions that make up its membership. Mr Campbell was right when he said 'one size does not fit all'. I have seen with my own eyes the inability of the NUS to tailor its services effectively - it sends the same information to SUs regardless of their size or the likely interests of their members eg. poster templates aren't much help for well established SUs that have their own 'branding' (except perhaps where the NUS wishes to run a national campaign), cheap drinks deals aren't much use where a JCR (Junior Common Room - SU for an Oxbridge/Durham College - so fairly small) doesn't run a bar.
Further, it should devise some way to allow individual students to join regardless of the affiliation status of their school/college/university. And I'm not talking about the affiliated membership scheme - I'm talking about full membership with voting rights - which leads me on nicely to talking about the way NUS elections are held.
(Yes, I'm using 'school' in its British sense - why shouldn't any school pupil capable of understanding what the NUS is and does be allowed to join? There are plenty of issues affecting young people on which the NUS is ideally placed to campaign, building on its current work eg. bullying within schools, exam stress, structure of post 14 education, how paid work affects school work etc. I realise there are children's charities who campaign on these issues, but none of these charities are very effective at getting children to campaign for themselves.)
I'm almost, but not quite, ashamed to admit that I don't understand the process completely (NUS elections that is). In brief, students elect representatives to go to the NUS' annual conference (the number of reps being proportionate to the number of students - with some weird rules for Oxford colleges who get more representation per student). Then they get to vote for the sabbatical officers and for the 'block of 12' - a really misleading name to anyone who doesn't look a bit further to learn that those individuals work part time for the NUS on a variety of campaigns. I don't know what the criteria are for standing for the various posts. Now I'm not arguing that representatives electing officers is undemocractic (it's not, particularly when the reps can be mantaded to vote in a particular way) - I'm arguing that with the advent of the internet and, indeed, even the postal system, it would be far better from the point of view of getting individual students involved with the organisation that claims to represent them to have direct elections.
And once it's done that, it should start making forceful, effective attacks on the government. Commissioning its own research into the effects fees have had/are likely to have in the future. Yes, marching though London is a part of raising public awareness of the fees issue, but it's not and never will be an effective way to make the government change its mind.
However, as important as fees are, there are other issues important to students ignored by the NUS - how about campaigning for a right to study leave from work for those that study part time? or how about campaigning in relation to the provision of high quality vocational education/training for those who don't want to take the academic route? What about basic education for the million or so (?) people who cannot read, write or do simple maths? How about retraining for people who become unemployed mid-career?
*Liberation Campaign is the term the NUS uses for the campaigns run by Black students (their term, not mine), LGB (tsk, they've not even added the T on yet), Women (we'll have that rant another time, this one's quite long enough) and Disabilities - campaigning for the 'liberation' of these minority groups from the oppression of the majority. I don't have a problem with the existence of these groups (except for Women, but we're not going there now), because discrimination on the basis of anything other than merit is wrong, they just seem to get a bit too much attention at the expense of other issues that are equally important.
