MPs, Come clean on fees! (letter to the Guardian)

I'm still reflecting on Tuesday's flashmob raising awareness about the HE funding review and ensuring that students' opposition to higher fees and the marketisation of higher education was heard loudly! I felt that the flashmob was a great success and I'd like to thank everyone who got involved! A round-up of the media coverage and the further campaign is soon to follow but at this stage I'd like to re-post the letter from Student Unionists across the country calling on both the Labour and Conservative parties to come clean on fees (see the Guardian):

"As student leaders we are appalled by Labour and Conservative attempts to duck difficult questions on student fees and finance at the next general election (Report, 10 November). We are in no doubt that a review panel dominated by business and university leaders is designed to stitch up students with yet another inflation-busting hike in tuition fees. Students will not stand for this. Opinion polls conducted for the National Union of Students and lecturers' union UCU consistently show that the overwhelming majority of the public are opposed to higher fees. Only 12% believe this review should even consider raising our fees; when students entering university this autumn are set to graduate with debts in excess of £23,500, it's not hard to see why.

Labour and Conservative leaders seem to believe they can maintain their cosy consensus of silence until the election and beyond. Today we are descending on parliament to demand that MPs come clean on their stance. Any parliamentary candidate that does not sign the NUS pledge to vote against an increase in fees and support our calls for a fairer funding system will be named and shamed. In 2005, the student vote made a significant difference in towns and cities across the UK. Our message is clear: candidates must vote with us, or students won't vote for them."

It is vital that students understand the power they posses as a collective. Make sure you are registered to vote well ahead of the general election and inform your local candidates that their position on student fees will be the issue which could mean the difference between winning or losing come the election!

October elections!

Nomination packs are available at the Guild reception now for both the vacant Officer positions and all Guild Council positions. Here is the information from the Guild website:

Nominations have now opened for all positions being elected in our October Elections. The positions for election are:

• Postgraduate and Mature Students’ Officer
  
• International Students’ Officer
  
• Satellite Sites Officer
  
• Disabled Students’ Officer
  
• First-year Guild Council positions
  
• Postgraduate Guild Council Representatives
  
• Guild Council positions left vacant after the March Elections

Nominations close by 10am on Monday 12th October. To get a nomination pack, either collect one from Guild Reception or download one from this webpage. For more information, email us at elections@guild.bham.ac.uk.

We are a Guild of Students! A response

After reading Ed's (Guild EEO) blogpost arguing that students are excluded from the democratic processes and the campaigns in the Guild I want to start having an open discussion on the topic. In brief, Ed raises two distinct points I want to address. Firstly, that students are excluded as engines of change and, secondly, that the Guild gives students a lower platform than Sabbs to share their views. I will now address these points:

Firstly, I stood on a manifesto of student led, bottom-up campaigns that involve students at every level. Being a Sabbatical is not about leading every campaign but about facilitating campaigns and empowering students to lead their on campaigns. Guild campaigns can only have credibility when the momentum comes from students. At the moment I am looking into ways of how to make this pledge a reality and any ideas are welcome. In the meanwhile, I can only facilitate the campaigns of those students that raise issues with me! Guild Council is the Guild’s policy making organ. Sabbatical officers, while working to achieve their manifesto pledges (on a basis of which they were elected), can be mandated by the students and every student can hold us to account. I agree with Ed that for too long we have allowed students to be disengaged and I hope that this year we can work together to change this!

Secondly, have I been given a platform which is disproportionately superior to fellow student bloggers? Well, according to my google analytics statistics only very few visitors to my blog have come via the Guild website so hence many people have come through word of mouth and my own advertising via facebook and twitter. I do not understand the point that students are being given less of a platform than me. The example Ed cites is Nick Petrie (whose blog I avidly follow). He promotes his blog well through twitter just the way I do. More importantly though he is the editor of Redbrick which gives him a platform of which I can only dream of. What is more any student can write for Redbrick or blog and as I stood on a manifesto pledging that Redbrick should be an uncensored and critical newspaper I fully believe that we are giving students a good platform.

And to all the student bloggers, tweeters and town-criers I have one simple request: share your ideas with me and make me aware of your issues and desires! I read blogs and tweets from students every day. Actually, right now I am working on a blog post on the topic of the 10:10 campaign after I saw tweets and blogs from different students being both inquisitive and constructively critical.

I am confused by the essence of the accusations of the Guild excluding students and would invite anyone to take the time and discuss this with me. I will leave you with this quote:

‘Realise that if you have time to whine and complain about something, you have time to do something about it’

In that spirit, if students feel passionately about an issue then they shouldn’t waste any time radically tiptoeing around the issue but come and see the officers and discuss how together we can actually go about achieving that change.