Tag Archives: university

Student movement or stagnant movement? My problems with the NUS Black Student’s campaign

Politics aside, I was really looking forward to getting involved in the black student’s campaign this year.  However, after attending the campaign’s annual summer conference, I have some serious reservations.

My suspicions began when I looked at the conference’s final motions and amendments document. I thought the steering committee were supposed to be impartial, but any motions submitted that criticised the structure of the campaign had been scrapped altogether or had been warped beyond recognition. I can only imagine this happened at compositing- a meeting at NUS HQ that motion proposers had to attend to put forward the case for keeping their proposals. The problem was, not everyone could go, thanks to money or travel issues.

One motion in particular that stood out was entitled ‘winter conference is too cold’. The motion resolved to do away with the campaigns annual winter conference and replace it with regional activist training days. In the final motions and amendments this had been merged into a motion named ‘winter conference is amazing’. Training days were only mentioned in the final resolution, cleverly phrased so that no delegate could take parts and attempt to scrap winter conference at all.

Clearly, there are political elements to the black students campaign’s steering committee. Members of the committee were clearly politically affiliated to candidates running in the election. I later discovered that Pav Ahktar, chair of steering, was black student’s officer from 2004 to 2006, and had graduated a very long time ago.

Pav’s political affiliations were confirmed in the election for next year’s steering committee, in which he recommded that delegates should also vote for Bellavia Riberio-Addy, who incidentally, is also a former black students officer . Personally, I object to two former black students’ officers running to be elected on to the steering committee as I don’t believe they can be impartial after being involved in the campaign for such a long time .

I believe the student movement is transient by nature, and for that reason, should always be kept regenerated, fresh and new. I didn’t see that in this campaign. I saw students and graduates who had been involved for 5 to 10 years moving from post to post. I think this suspicious, and indicative of a select few who  obviously do not want to let go.  It is a phenomenon that strangling progress and putting off new delegates.

My dissatisfaction came to a head when I decided to run for women’s representative on the black student’s committe. Standing orders (the same standing orders I had read on NUS Connect and in my delegate pack) dictated that there were two open places available. This is why I ran.

When we entered the room we had to wait 45 minutes because one candidate (who has been on the black student’s committee for 7 years) insisted that one place should be reserved for further education candidates only.

Upon consulting steering, the room was informed that a place should be reserved for further education, that this had been forgotten on the standing orders, and that we had the opportunity to take it to a vote.

Now, I agree with this proposal in principle, but in the context of the women’s caucus I thought it was an absolute farce. The candidate who ran for further education women’s place was Rebecca Sawbridge, who has comfortably sat on various positions on black student’s committee for seven years. Conveniently she was the only further education candidate in this election. In this election, I saw a committee member (who had already enjoyed too much time sitting at the table) reserving herself a place on the committee for another year. I was outraged.

With the same people maxing their term limits and moving from post to post to post, year after year after year, I believe that the black student’s campaign is stagnant. This is a case of the same people, with the same ideas, same politics, and ultimately, the same cliques. First time delegates who are keen to get involved are shafted by old timers using their political persuasion to fix things and create certain wins for themselves. When we are welcoming delegates to their eight year on committee, something is seriously wrong. In all honestly, I think some campaign and steering committee members think they are the black student’s campaign, as if it could not survive without them.  The democracy is warped, and the movement is going nowhere.

I also object to the way the motions are set out in the black students campaign. Delegates must vote on four main motions with a series of amendments after each one- forcing delegates to accept the a main motion whether they like its content or not.

I think committee members should accept criticism gracefully. The campaign needs progress and reform.  When new delegates are unsatisfied,  it’s not helpful to brand us ‘right wing’ just because you don’t like constructive criticism. I do believe the black students campaign is in the stranglehold of a select few individuals who are hanging on to the campaign like a comfort blanket. Ultimately, this results black activists who are being shunned, and black students who are being failed.

What’s after graduation? Panic!

I’ve written for The Guardian’s comment is free on the rising levels of youth unemployment.

‘I’ll let you in on a little secret – I’m terrified of graduating. The growing youth unemployment rates have loomed in the back of my mind for a while now and I’ve sat snugly in the student bubble for almost three years. Very soon, I’ll have to take those tentative steps out into the real world.

It’s not the early mornings or the daily grind I’m worried about. Instead, I wonder if I’ll get the opportunity to face those in the first place. After my graduation, I had planned to apply for a master’s degree, but postgraduate funding, which was already thin on the ground, has just received another blow with the coalition hinting at slashing funding for postgraduate courses….’

Read the rest here!

Students! Don’t lose your head in all the protest hype

More protests and demonstrations are planned for later this month, which is great.

You may be involved in the planning of something along those lines. Perhaps you’ve even seen this facebook event, that recommends students to ‘walk out of  your school, college or university’ in protest to education cuts. Earlier this week, about 40 Manchester students occupied a university building, demanding to see evidence of accounts that would hopefully detail how cuts would affect them.

Interesting approaches, but before you decide to storm out of your lecture half way through, ask yourself- are the people you’re protesting against really the enemy ?

I hate to paraphrase Cameron, but we really are ‘all in this together’. Students, lecturers, university staff- all of us will be hit badly by HE cuts. Walking out of a lecture will only disrupt a lesson and annoy both your lecturers and  university, neither of whom have any control over higher fees or impending cuts. Manchester students, you probably could have aquired those documents by just asking nicely rather than causing a ruckus. I’d bet any money that Manchester’s finance office don’t want those cuts any more than Manchester’s students do. What’s the point of splitting the cause and targeting people who don’t deserve to be pinpointed? If we’re campaigning for the right to education, what’s the point of walking out of it?

Usually, an employee strike is effective because employees find themselves at a deadlock with an employer  who makes unfair demands. The employer is the enemy. We could strike and walk out of our lectures and lessons, but our lecturers, teachers and universities aren’t the enemy here. They’re facing cuts and difficulties too. Unfortunately, we all are. With these well-intentioned but ultimately blind walkout plans, we’re at risk of losing the message all together.

There’s other ways to handle the 24th. Keep campaigning. Think creatively.

Apologies if No Comment is quickly turning into a HE blog. This is something I feel pretty passionate about. Sooner or later, I’ll resume normal service :)

So- what exactly happened at #Demo2010?

I couldn’t tell you what happened at Millbank yesterday- I wasn’t there. I and other UCLan students were due to catch our coach back to Preston at 3.30pm- in fact, many students had been coached down to London as part of their student unions. None of us had time to hang around in London burning things.

But what of those who did? The condemnation of those students, teenagers and random, trouble seeking strangers who took part in the hours of vandalism and destruction has been widespread. Yes, there were some who had turned up to make trouble, but we should be wary of demonising all the students who turned up to the protest. Attempting to demolish the Conservative Party’s headquarters was too much, but unfortunately, this is a sign of the times.  The political parties who betrayed students were in need of a symbol of discontent, but this was a symbol too far.

Some factions of the mainstream media should be chastised for honing in on the violence of the protest. This kind of reporting obscures the original message of the demonstration, and blurs the very reasons why students were out on the streets. Initial coverage gave the impression that the protest began and ended at Millbank tower- failing to stress that 50,000 plus students marched peacefully.We walked, we danced, we chanted, and approved of each other’s banners and placards. Some people in the crowd formed a conga line that meandered closely to the barriers, only to be pushed aggressively back by police on the scene. This was the only incident of police brutality I witnessed at the event, and it didn’t look very fair to me. Thankfully, as the the day went on, media coverage increased in its balance.

On the morning of the 1oth, news channels were reporting that both students and lecturers planned to march on the streets of London. By 4pm, the same news outlets were reporting that student riots were in full force, with no mention of the peaceful protesters, or the lecturers who were marching beside them.   Nothing was said of the parents that marched for their children or the elderly gentleman outside Westminster who held a placard that read ‘I’m fighting for my grandson’.

The most remarkable fact about yesterday’s demonstration was that, for many who marched, the tuition fee hikes won’t even affect us (with the exception of further education students who were there). We were there to protest about the injustices of the future. Yes, students are angry. We are angry because thousands of students voted Lib Dem, and we’ve been lied to. Disillusion and unrest are spreading fast. Those of us who campaign against tuition fees need to cut the violence and keep up the momentum.

As for those Conservative bloggers who are calling NUS president Aaron Porter to step down from his position- the very idea is ridiculous and counter productive. Neither Porter or the NUS could anticipate double the predicted numbers, or the violence and protests. Vicious criticism of the demo’s organisers reads like Tory propaganda.

Yesterday’s demo was the depiction of frustration and a regrettable explosion of discontent. It’s sad that as students, some of us have had to go to a ridiculous extreme just to be heard. This is what happens when you ignore and betray the people who you were elected to represent.

It’s looking likely that nothing will change. Thanks to the violence and riots, all students have been tarnished by the actions of a few. It’s time to understand their anger.  I’m proud to have taken part in the largest student mobilisation of a generation. Yesterday was of the utmost importance- even if we’re ignored; at least we’ve demonstrated our discontent.

Diary of a disadvantaged student: starting below zero

Recently, much has been made of disadvantaged students in the press. I’m not ashamed to say I’m one of them- currently, I receive the maximum maintence loan and grant payments from the student loans company. I received £60 combined from each parent on the very first day of uni, and made my own way from there.

I’m in the third year of my degree, and have landed myself a comfortable part time job in the student union, working 13 hours a week. Thanks to the student loans company, I could splash out on a new laptop, pay rent and buy textbooks at the start of term. Thanks to my job, I can do my food shopping. I’m more fortunate than some- I’ve friends with maxed out credit cards as well as the student loan, living off sales they’ve made on eBay.

Some argue that it’s possible for the average student to live comfortably off the maitenence grant and loan for three month stints at a time. There’s some truth in this- when I first moved to uni, the loan was the most money I’d ever been in possession of. Some of us went a bit mad. But now we’re in third year, we’ve all sobered up, and as we edge closer to the end of the student bubble, we’re starting to face up to the prospect of starting life below zero. By this, I’m referring to the debt that we accrue whilst at uni- the debts that’ll loom over our heads before and after we reach the £15,000 threshold to start making payments, as well as the student overdraft that we’ll spend our graduate summer paying off.

Last week, my university society took part in a debate with Conservative Futures. They argued that different fees for different courses will ‘increase flexibility’ for students. Positive talk of these plans are, put simply, incredulous. Quite the contrary – these plans will leave us disadvantaged types stuck. The idea of choosing a degree based on price rather than passion is elitist in the extreme. Forget social mobility. The level playing ground will be the bumpiest course yet.

I came to uni primarily because I’d had a taste of the minimum wage life, and I didn’t want to live it forever. I can only speak for myself when I talk of an overwhelming fear of working towards nothing- but I’m sure there’s some students who feel the same. We’re all too aware of the prospect of being spat out into a job market with no space for us.

This Wednesday, students will march in central London to protest about the proposed rise in tutition fees. We won’t just be marching for ourselves- the fee increase won’t affect us just yet, that’ll take place in 2012.

We’ll be marching because we’re angry that graduate unemployement is the highest it’s been for 17 years. We’ll be marching in indignation and disgust at the fact the the very same people who promise us that ‘we’re all in this together’ benefited quite nicely from their own free higher education – lest we forget, at least in England, tution fees were only introduced 12 years ago. We’ll be marching because when we do attempt to break into our fields of interest, there’s a high chance we’ll be exploited by companies who expect graduates to work for free (endearingly called interships) for any time spanning from six months to a year, with no guarantee of a job at the end of the tunnel.  We’ll be marching for our younger sisters and brothers- for all teenagers, whose university aspirations are becoming less and less likely.  We’ll be marching because the coalition’s ‘fair’ rhetoric isn’t washing with us.

The future’s bleak, the future’s blue: the reality of higher education cuts

Snapshot from a 2008 student protest in Dublin

If you’re studying a degree anchored in the arts, humanities or social sciences, prepare to rip up your text books- because according to the coalition government, your degree is worthless. As a result of the comprehensive spending review, English universities are facing a 40% cut in central government funding. Courses including but not limited to science, medicine and technology will continue to receive funding, whilst it’s looking likely that degrees in the arts, humanities and social will have all of their state funding cut, leaving these courses to be paid for in their entirety by the students who take them.

After universities minister David Willets branded students ‘a burden on the taxpayer’ in June, the implementation of Lord Browne’s higher education review, whilst depressing, shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Arts and humanities subjects are sometimes viewed as pointless pursuits- and any student reading one of these subjects at university will be able to instantly recall divulging their degree of choice to a listener who has responded with something along the lines ‘well…there’s more useful things to be studying’. Perhaps I speak as a bitter humanities student- but there are thousands upon thousands of us, and we are none too pleased.

That’s just those of us who are lucky enough to be studying for a degree. Would be students are now finding themselves in a dire situation- with some reconsidering their university bound aspirations altogether. Tony Blair’s New Labour emphasis on ‘education, education, education’, and the party’s 50% promise of young people into higher education somewhat diluted the concept. In terms of higher education opportunities, young people have gone from a fruitful land of plenty to a sparse, dry desert- this year, over 200,000 people were rejected from university places as higher education institutions responded to record numbers of applicants with a hiatus on places.

For a while now, university has been billed as a rite of passage – a place to grow, learn and change. But with these cuts to higher education funding, one can’t help but suspect that these changes aren’t being made in favour of the universities or students themselves, but rather in the favour of the companies waiting in the wings to employ graduates. Leaving the arts, humanities and social sciences to stagnate is dangerous, and has the potential to transform England’s universities into two tier, Dickensian graduate machines.

Young people, it’s time to scrunch up your hopes and dreams and chuck them in the bin. With the cuts hitting women twice as hard as men, the comprehensive spending review appears to hark back to that old adage- women and children first. If you take the time to sift your way through all the deficit talk, and dodge the increasingly patronising credit card debt analogies of the people in power, you’ll eventually discover the facts under the layers and layers of rhetoric.  If you’re not too convinced by Clegg and Cameron’s constant and insistent reassurances to the general public that these cuts are both progressive and fair, and you raise an eyebrow at the phrase ‘we’re all in this together’, you are not alone.

News of the comprehensive spending review has hit the general public like a torrential downpour of rain – one we were all expecting since the weather man’s gloomy forecast on Wednesday 12th May.

At the moment, it looks like the nation is quite content with standing miserably on the pavement – getting hopelessly, thoroughly drenched. We’re British, and we’ll put up with it. We knew these cuts were coming, and despite disparate news of the odd dissenting voice or organized protest, the majority of those affected are suffering silently. However, just across the channel tunnel, the population of France are rejecting their imminent downfall. They’re donning raincoats and heavy duty wellington boots in the form of mass protests and street riots in response to Sarkozy’s proposal to increase the French national retirement age by two years.

Far more change in happening to us in the UK, and it looks like the next four years are going to be very difficult indeed. In response to the largest ever cuts to public spending to affect my generation, I think it’s time we made more of a fuss.