Liam Burns

I Am the Change - How Students are Fighting to Save Epsom Phab

2012-10-24T05:47:39-04:00

In November last year, NUS launched a groundbreaking project called I Am The Change. We invited students let us know changes they wanted to make, whether it be about education, the community, the environment, personal development, health and wellbeing, careers or politics - it didn't matter what it was about, or how big it was.

All visitors to the website then voted for their favourite idea with the winner receiving training and funding to help deliver the campaign. The winner was Courtney Giles - a student who wanted to stop Epsom Phab - a youth club for disabled and non-disabled children - being closed down by Surrey County Council.

Following campaign planning days and ongoing support, Epsom Phab will now remain open until the end of 2013 at least and the campaign team are hopeful of achieving their ultimate aim to have a permanent home for the youth club. Here is a video of how I Am The Change helped Courtney with her campaign:

Following this success, NUS is relaunching the project this week. It's very easy for a college or university student to feel unable to change things. They may feel like an insignificant onlooker when it comes to big issues such as global politics, social inequality and racism, or even when it comes to comparatively 'small' issues such as student housing, bursaries and career guidance.

But change doesn't have to be daunting or intimidating. If you make an effort to recycle, you're saying "I believe in a cleaner world, and I care". If you refuse to buy clothes from a company that uses child labour, you're taking a stand against exploitation.

Courtney Giles didn't automatically identify as an activist but she did know that she wanted to make a change and what this resulted in was actually a successful anti-cuts campaign. Even the most experienced campaigners know that true activism starts at grass roots level. Simple and immediate actions can have a profound effect when we work collectively with other people trying to achieve the same goal. And this could be anything, from writing to our MP to raising an issue at a local council meeting. Even our smallest choices make a difference, and some of them can end up having a bigger effect than we could possibly have imagined.

Be the Change now at www.nus.org.uk/iamthechange

We Want a Radical New Vision for Education

2012-06-28T10:08:07-04:00

This is not a good time to be a student in college or university. Stories about soaring youth unemployment and scarce opportunities for graduates pepper the news bulletins. People living and working longer inevitably puts a squeeze on opportunities at the other end. Perpetual 'reform' and ministerial meddling shifts the skills and qualifications goalposts before we can even start paying back the loans that fund them. Ours is a generation with less of an idea of how our lives will pan out than any before us. No wonder we feel cheated.

Back in 2010, some 50,000 of our members took to the streets of London to make clear that they would not accept being "bought" for electoral gain and then sidelined in favour of political ambition. The betrayal by the majority of Liberal Democrat MPs - who had made individual pledges and commitments as a party that they would stand up for students - damaged not only themselves, but our own faith in the political process as a whole.

But there is good news. Thousands of the inspiring activists that came to London that day carried on campaigning. They were out trying to halt the removal of the EMA, they've been lobbying for a living wage and they've been trying to stop the introduction of student loans for FE college courses. That march - a major milestone in the tradition of student protest that goes back beyond NUS' formation 90 years ago - mobilised and engaged a new generation of student activists who want a better future. So this autumn, on Wednesday 21 November, we will march again, recruiting the activists that will define the next general election.

We will come together with a clear message - we own the future and we need an education that prepares us for it. We have a right to protest against politicians who seem distant, over-privileged and self-serving. David Cameron and Conservative MPs face an uphill struggle to prove to us they're on our side. We have a right to protest at betrayal at the hands of MPs, and the Liberal Democrats as a party will need to show that they've learned their lesson. And Labour cannot be a party of crude opposition but must instead prove they have the necessary radical solutions to offer our generation. Today's student leaders grew up learning more about a Labour government that introduced fees than opposing them. If Ed Miliband wants our votes he needs to listen to us and be bold in reshaping education and opportunity for a generation that feels abandoned. Tinkering around the tuition fee edges will be nowhere near enough.

We want a radical new vision for education at the heart of society, one that recognises that education after the age of 16 cannot be neatly divided into colleges and universities, into further and higher, or into timelines that end at the age of 21. Such a vision will take us to the next stage beyond primary and secondary: we increasingly need to see tertiary education as a whole. By doing so, we accept that learning is never done and should extend throughout our lives.

Young people know that the world they are growing into is not the same one as their parents did; that they won't earn as much money as those who currently hold power, that they may never own a house or have a retirement in the traditional sense, or be able to rely on a state pension. But they are not content to be told to accept their lot and get on with a less fulfilling life. Of course an education in and of itself is an important part of our future; generating knowledge, analysing history, creating art, developing our individual collective understanding of the world around us enriches us all, but for most education serves a simple purpose - to create opportunity.

We'll be building our vision for tertiary education over the year, and I want to involve students, school pupils, families and politicians of all party colours in that process, but as well as policy, it is protest that will inspire the next generation of activists. That's why on Wednesday 21 November we want to see students, young people, their friends, their families, the tutors, their lecturers, their vice-chancellors, their employers, and their politicians, come together to say: we deserve a stake in the future and we need better. I look forward to seeing you on the streets of London.

University Head Shouldn't Stand By as Universities are Treated Like a Political Football

2012-05-04T06:03:04-04:00

This week is Universities Week, a chance for everyone involved in the higher education sector to shout from the rooftops about all the brilliant work that our universities do. Considering the controversy and arguments that surround the issue of education and its future at the moment it's good that we take the time to collectively appreciate what it is we're fighting for.

Which is why the latest comments to emerge from coalition MPs about why the Higher Education Bill was quietly dropped earlier this year, leaving parliament and the public with no chance for scrutiny of changes to higher education, are so undignified. If these MPs really wanted make Ministers to come clean on their plans for higher education we'd welcome them to the cause and stand alongside them calling on David Willetts and Vince Cable to make their intentions clear in parliament but instead they choose to brief anonymously and use something as important as the future of higher education to score a few cheap political points off the MPs they are supposed to be working with.

Not having the scrutiny in the Houses of Parliament, in the media and in public of the government's plans that a higher education bill would provide is a dangerous attempt to bypass accountability and that is why students from all over the country came to parliament last month to lobby their MPs on this very issue. The changes proposed in the higher education white paper were as significant to universities and students as the health bill was to the NHS and they deserve the same public scrutiny rather than being slipped through the back door at the stroke of a ministerial pen.

So, Ministers are shying away from debate and backbench MPs are using universities as political football, deeply concerning in itself but it's not just those in parliament who are endangering our universities, the people who run them have been worryingly quiet as well. Recently I spoke to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) conference and I told the gathered heads of universities and other policymakers that our universities do a great deal of good but that many of their senior leaders had failed to stand up for their institutions.

Our universities, I told them, have great strength in depth, a wonderful and powerful range of teaching and research, diverse in style and subject that puts our university sector as a whole amongst the best in the world. I drew attention to a recent report that almost all university students would earn more money over their lifetimes than those that didn't go into higher education. Crucially, at a time of ever increasing unemployment, graduates are much more likely to be unemployed than those with lower level qualifications. Then there are the social and cultural benefits of the melting pot campuses of the UK, the excellent representation of women and the impact of students' unions, societies and clubs on their communities. Universities are an undoubted and provable good in society.

But yet the Vice-Chancellors who run our universities stood by quietly as budgets were slashed; they meekly accepted the imposition of a forced market in fees that they know will be bad for many universities and the consequences have been chaos and obfuscation.

The government has more changes planned, we know they do because they published a white paper outlining them all but when the going got tough and they didn't fancy another fight on the scale of the one they got over the increased privatisation of NHS services so they dropped the bill but not the plans.

We believe changes that will increase the incursion of profit-making companies into education, destabilise the sector by moving the controversial 'core and margin' goalposts, retrospectively change the cost of loans and further slash core teaching funding can be made even without legislation and that making such moves in undemocratic and that the government should come clean immediately and table an HE Bill so that their plans get the scrutiny they need.

I think university leaders believe the same thing and that they should stand up and say so. When sniping MPs use one of the best education systems in the country to derail the plans of another political party they shouldn't let it go past without taking a swing. When the government push them into offering virtually useless partial fee waivers instead of bursaries and simultaneously causing already diminished funds to diminish further then they should resist publicly. And when the government tries to introduce damaging increases in for-profit companies in universities they should stand with students, who voted at NUS Conference this month for continuing national action, in saying enough is enough.

Vice-Chancellors proudly proclaim that their institutions are core to civic society and essential to challenging accepted wisdom and yet renege on their responsibility to speak out as academic commentators on deeply damaging public policy. Until they step up it is left to students to say "Our universities are our future and we will not let you endanger them without a fight."

Students' Letter to Nick Clegg

2011-12-02T19:00:00-05:00

Yesterday the Office for Fair Access announced that a total of £70m will be taken from students' pockets to fund the con trick of fee waivers. In response the National Union of Students has sent a letter to Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, calling on him to address our National Conference in his constituency town of Sheffield next year. The letter is co-signed by dozens of elected student officers and you can read it below:

Dear Mr Clegg,

You will no doubt remember that last year, days before the vote in the House of Commons to raise student fees to £9,000 per year, you said that a university would only be able to charge more than £6,000 per year in "exceptional circumstances". This turned out to be wrong, and too many universities wanted and were permitted to charge the upper limit.

You will also recall creating a £150 million National Scholarship Programme to help poor kids to into university. The net result of the changes in effect means that none of the £150 million National Scholarship Programme will end up in students' pockets; it will all be swallowed up in fee waivers or reductions in university bursaries. Our figures reveal that in fact some £13.8 million less in bursaries and scholarships will reach students' pockets in 2015 as a result of your changes.

As it dawned on the government that the costs of lending would be far too high, the rules of the game were changed, so that 20,000 places would be moved to institutions charging less than £7,500. Inevitably, the universities that have responded to this threat to their stability are those with the highest numbers of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Far from striving to 'ensure fair access', this has resulted in a 'reverse pupil premium', where those universities that take on the most students from disadvantaged backgrounds are forced to spend less on their students as a result.

How have these universities managed to reduce their average tuition fee level? By diverting cash away from the pockets of students going to university next autumn, and instead to the Treasury - against the advice of your own access tzar, Simon Hughes. The reason that they have done so is simple - the government have not only permitted but incentivised this behaviour.

The release of data from the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) shows that the total being spent on bursaries by universities has dropped by a further £13.8 million (per year), which is in addition to the anticipated £55 million fall in bursaries by 2015/16 already announced in September.

Most frustrating of all is that you know that because a graduate will have their loan written off after 30 years, your own government has said that little more than 60% are likely to pay back their loan in full - and these will be those graduates who earn the highest salaries. This means that, other than for those higher earners, partial fee waivers are completely fictional; they never exist from the perspective of the graduate. Lower earners do not benefit by a single penny, but the Treasury gets to spend less on subsidising loans.

This means that partial fee waivers are nothing more than an accounting con trick: one that allows universities to keep a higher sticker price on their courses, enabling them to retain their 'top trump' score in the games of prestige, whilst at the same time reducing the burden on the Treasury.

We do not believe that these perverse results of the government's market system were intended, but they are the reality - and unless and until steps are taken to address these issues, students will continue to regard the government, and your party, with disdain.

You may know that next year, in our 90th year, our National Conference will be held in Sheffield. As a result, we would like to invite you to the conference next April to explain to delegates the decisions you have taken and to answer the many questions and concerns students across the country have.

I look forward to your reply.

Yours sincerely,

Liam Burns, President
National Union of Students

Jacob Kitchiner, President
Sheffield Hallam Students' Union

Thom Arnold, President
University of Sheffield Students' Union

Joe Vinson, President
Cornwall College Students' Union

David Howells, President
University of Bath Students' Union

Rob Scully, President
City University London Students' Union

Thomas Hollick, President
City College Norwich Students' Union

David Cichon, President
University of Sussex Students' Union

Terry Preston, President
Brighton Student' Union

Sam Grayson, AU President
St Marys University College Twickenham

Reni Eddo-Lodge, President
University of Central Lancashire Students' Union

Colin Offler, President
University of the West of England Students' Union

Karl Hobley, President
Reading University Students' Union

James Haywood, President
Goldsmiths Students' Union

Caroline Dangerfield, President
University of Salford Students' Union

Liam Davis, President
De Montfort Students' Union

Aidan Mersh, President
Hull University Union

Jonathan Wright, President (Education & Engagement)
University Campus Suffolk Union

Sean Ruston, Aldwych Group Chair and Warwick SU Education Officer

Oliver Deed, Chair
University of Surrey Students' Union

Sam Lewis, President
Worcester Students' Union

Paul Mason, President
Oxford Brookes Students' Union

Rebecca Bridger, President
Loughborough University Students' Union

Matte Andrews, President
Glasgow Caledonian University Students' Association

Leigh Hankinson, President
York St John Students' Union

Oeiisha Williams, Education and Welfare Officer
Birmingham City Students' Union

Matt McPherson, President
Edinburgh University Students' Association

Rosie O'Neill, Welfare & Rights Officer
Cambridge University Students' Union & Graduate Union

Alex Causton-Ronaldson, Chair of the Trustee Board
University of the Creative Arts Students' Union

Jason Smith, Student Council Chair
University of Central Lancashire Students' Union, Preston campus

Ben Jackson, Education Officer
Leeds University Union

Luke Frost, Chair of the Executive Committee
University of the Creative Arts Students' Union

Emma Meehan, Vice President Societies and Activities
Edinburgh University Students' Association

Ellis Jones, Vice President, Academic Experience
Oxford Brookes Students' Union

Tash Ross, Community and Student Rights Officer
Union of University of East Anglia Students

Mat Denton, Welfare Officer
University of Sheffield Students' Union

Philippa Faulkner, Vice President Services
Edinburgh University Students' Association

Godfrey Atuahene Junior, Vice President (Education and Democracy)
University of Portsmouth Students' Union

Mike Williamson, Vice President Academic Affairs
Edinburgh University Students' Association

Dean Smith
University of the Creative Arts Students' Union

Ben Cronin, Welfare Officer
City College Norwich Students' Union

Naomi McKay, Vice President
Wakefield College Students' Union

Mark Sewards, Communications and Internal Affairs Officer
Leeds University Union

Craig Best, Vice President Academic Representation
Union of Brunel Students

Emma Baker, Publicity Officer and Vice President-elect
Bridgwater College Student Union

Josee Tisdale, Further Education Officer
City College Norwich Students Union

Sam Higham, Vice President (Education)
Keele University Students' Union

Phil Pocknee, Vice President (Welfare)
Hull University Union

Izzy John, Welfare Officer
University of Warwick Students' Union

Clare Keogh, Women's Officer
Kingston University Students' Union

Rachel Wenstone
NUS Anti Racism Anti Facism Co-Chair

Kanja Sesay
NUS Anti Racism Anti Facism Co-Chair

Fiona Wood, Mature Students Representative
NUS National Executive Council

Chloe Parkin
Chester University Students' Union

Ivan Nicholls
Newcastle University Students' Union

Ben Fisher, Community Officer
Leeds University Union

Pat Plested, Canterbury Campus Officer
University of the Creative Arts Students' Union

Why NUS is Calling on Students to Say 'I Am The Change'

2011-11-27T18:00:00-05:00

It's very easy for a college or university student to feel unable to change things. They may feel like an insignificant onlooker when it comes to big issues such as global politics, social inequality and racism, or even when it comes to comparatively 'small' issues such as student housing, bursaries and career guidance.

But change doesn't have to be daunting or intimidating. If you make an effort to recycle, you're saying "I believe in a cleaner world, and I care". If you refuse to buy clothes from a company that uses child labour, you're taking a stand against exploitation.

In the United States in the 1950s, a woman one day simply said "No". She decided that she didn't want to sit at the back of the bus anymore, and she soon realised that a great many other people didn't want to, either.

Even our smallest choices make a difference, and some of them can end up having a bigger effect than we could possibly have imagined.

That's why NUS is launching a new project to encourage students to Be The Change. We've put together a new animation, linking to a website where students can upload their picture and write details of a change they'd like to make. This change could be about education, the community, the environment, personal development, health and wellbeing, careers or politics - it doesn't matter what it's about, or how big it is.

All visitors to the website will then vote for their favourite idea, and the most popular ones will be in with a chance of receiving training and funding to help deliver the campaign.

This project will be ongoing, so there will be a number of voting periods and a number of winning campaigns. And even if an idea doesn't win, our website will provide students with the resources they need to help fire their imaginations and maintain their enthusiasm for making change happen.

In this way, the website will serve as a continuing reminder to students that they can make a difference - that they can stand up and say "I Am The Change".

A-level Results - What Future for Tomorrow's Students?

2011-08-17T19:00:00-04:00

A great many young people will be collecting their A-level results today and regardless of what they find they should be proud of getting through what is a stressful and nervous time. Tens of thousands who have worked hard and achieved their grades should be congratulated on their achievements and not belittled. Too often discussion on A-level results day focuses on the shortcomings of our education system rather than celebrating the achievements of students and teachers up and down the country.

At a time when young people are facing an onslaught from every angle, we should take the opportunity today to properly congratulate them on their achievements, especially when, through no fault of their own, many now risk a very nervous wait and the very real prospect of disappointment.

Many of those who get their A-level results today will be hoping to go on to university. Some will be disappointed and have to go through clearing or reconsider their options. There is plenty of advice around, including the UCAS Clearing Helpline on 0871 468 0468 and the UCAS website - http://www.ucas.com/.

The fact remains that creating barriers to college or university, real or perceived, makes very little sense - particularly at a time when the jobs market is already so competitive and when education is so vital to economic recovery. From tuition fees to scrapping EMA, a two tier admissions system or the shambles of the National Scholarship Programme, I don't envy those trying to navigate applying to university this year.
Many of these policies are enshrined in the anticipated the recently published higher education White Paper, which claims to put students at the heart of the system. It does nothing of the sort.

Whilst the choices students make will certainly have a significant impact on the higher education landscape, this isn't in any sense a meaningful empowerment. Yes, the flow of students to different institutions will lead some institutions to succeed, while other institutions fail. Some universities will be particularly savvy at finding ways of attracting the 'AAB' students. Meanwhile, some institutions will produce 'cut-price' degrees in subjects that are cheap to provide, without offering the wider provision that is traditionally a part of the university experience.

Both of these processes will occur through exercising choice. But let's be clear, that is the choice of whether to leave a university or never apply in the first place. I don't know where the student is at this point, but it's certainly not at the 'heart of the system'. These policies run in stark contrast to the interests and expressed wishes of the vast majority of students.

Asking students to apply to university based on 'value for money' is not meaningful if what the student really wants is a sustainable and coherent system in which universities are not failing, departments are not collapsing, and universities are able to spend time providing the best possible education rather than offer discounts and other financial incentives to attract student 'consumers' and the slice of funding that flows them.

The Government have justified their decision to increase the tuition fee cap and to load students with a Push-predicted average of almost £60,000 worth of debt by saying that more support will be available to poorer students. But this is a sleight of hand. As the independent Higher Education Policy Institute says in a report published today, the Government's funding changes and structural proposals will leave social mobility an "unintended victim" and access to elite institutions will be restricted further still.
Those who have received their A-level results today and have got a university place to look forward to face significant financial pressures. The gap between available financial support and the true cost of living whilst at university remains enormous - last year, NUS found the funding shortfall for students studying in London to be £6,800, whilst for students outside London it was as high as £7,340. Students with average family incomes had £37.28 per week inside London and £22.79 per week outside London left to live on from their student support after paying for their housing and utilities costs - figures which clearly compare unfavourably to the £51.85 per week given to young Jobseekers' Allowance claimants, which is perhaps a useful indicator of the amount Government believe people can subsist on.

Meanwhile, the Government's National Scholarship Programme will add further confusion next year to an already confused support system, which has led to institutions rushing to introduce fee waivers rather than money in students' pockets. Bursaries and scholarships can make a crucial and immediate difference, particularly for those from poorer backgrounds who are at risk of dropping out due to money problems, but insubstantial partial fee waivers are an elaborate con trick.
And all the while, we'll have to continue to call for expanded university numbers to provide for all those qualified applicants who have worked hard in order to achieve the required grades and yet still found the door closed for them.

To leave people to sink or swim is not acceptable and ministers must give those who have received their results today both hope and opportunity. To those who are entering university, there are significant challenges ahead - and we need to come together to put continue to strongly state the need for the Government to rethink its incoherent and ill-thought out reforms, and to instead to invest in our future.