Our NUS delegates report back on this year's National Conference.
*CONTENT WARNING: Abuse, Racism, Sexual Violence, Gender-based Violence*
Every year, your Union sends 4 delegates to NUS’ National Conference to write, debate, collaborate and vote on new policies for the NUS for the next academic year. This year, your Staffs delegates recognised the barriers for Parent & Carer Students across the country during this pandemic, not the only Students' Union to recognise this we merged our proposal with Cardiff SU, unfortunately, the proposal didn’t make it through the priority ballot, so was not voted on. This doesn’t change what we do at Staffs, but it was a proposal that the support should be available and adapted for all other Higher and Further Education institutions across the UK.
This year’s conference took place on zoom, allowing us to interact with delegates which we weren't able to do last year. The overall feel of the conference was focused on the effect the pandemic has had on different types of students. The policy proposals put forward were empathetic and encouraged conversations around how can we support all the different students equitably.
The priority ballot left us with 6 proposals to discuss at the conference, all were very important coming off the back of this year:
Fees & Finance
This was a very interesting discussion based on the previous 12 months, we had a history lesson on Student finance, student debt and the marketisation of education. Full tuition fee refunds were talked about at length, as to whether they would be considered compensation or debt relief, What would refunds mean for international students as fees are considerably higher for them? Delegates in this session argued that if this does go through International students should be the first in line to receive this.
This motion passed.
Student Housing & Cost of Living
Delegates discussed how their Student Union’s and officers have worked around the country to have conversations with MPs, contacting them via email or post, just like we did at Staffs! They also shared how students have dealt with rogue landlords during the pandemic and the different kinds of support needed to counter them.
The hot topic of the session was around the National Living wage and how we can support students to find jobs coming out of National Lockdown. Delegates were vocal on how this pandemic has affected apprentices, especially mature student apprentices who still need to provide for their families but are only paid £4.31 p/h for the first year of their apprenticeship, this led to delegates looking at a campaign to increase the national apprentice minimum wage. There was a petition started around this to be taken to parliament, if you want to sign this petition you can find it here: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/578268
Guarantors has always been a tricky subject, delegates had the ideas that Unis should be able to act as guarantors for students, in circumstances such as care-leavers, estranged students and students from low-income backgrounds. The whole idea is that institutions should be putting students first rather than money, this would mean getting the housing sector to be transparent on rent, introduce shorter-term tenancies, secure legislative change, maintaining a constant conversation with national housing sectors and government bodies, and learning from the mistakes and mistreatment of students during the pandemic.
Both these motions passed.
*CONTENT WARNING: Abuse, Racism, Sexual Violence, Gender-based Violence*
Sexual Violence, NDA’s & Relationship Abuse
During this session, we discussed recent incidents in the student movement, we talked about the cases of Sarah Everard and Blessing Olusegun, which also introduced conversations around Racism in media coverage. It was also noted that delegates wanted this policy to be inclusive to all survivors of Sexual Violence and Abuse, no matter gender identity, sexuality, religious belief or ethnicity. All support services should be able to adapt to the needs of the student, and students should feel comfortable coming forward about their experiences if they are ever affected by them whilst at an institution. Sexual Violence Liaison Officers are integral to the support of survivors on campus, and even building policies at the institution to put a definitive safety net and protections in place for survivors who chose to disclose/report during their studies.
NDA’s or Non-Disclosure Agreements were also a barrier to survivors being able to get support from their institutions, the feeling was that NDAs encourage students not to report incidents. In this session, we were all reminded that NDA’s don’t stand when a crime has been committed, but this opened up further discussions around students signing NDA’s at the point of enrolment without realising, or NDA’s being the small print in a larger document that students will need to sign. Strathclyde Students’ Union, have been doing lots of work on NDA’s at their institution around this topic but would really like to have a discussion around these as a whole.
This motion passed.
Mental Health
The feeling of delegates in this room is that the proposal felt too vague and didn’t address what changes are needed to all other existing policies around mental health. In the period of 2014-2019, Mental Health issues have doubled, and this pandemic has only heightened mental health issues for students, with services having to go online and furlough arrangements at different institutions. Overall, delegates in this session took multiple different stances on what this policy would entail and what they would want to see from it.
This motion passed.
Erasmus+
We’re awaiting the notes from this session, but this motion passed.
We also attended some Campaign and networking sessions:
With the upcoming local elections in May, there was a session on how we can engage students with these elections as well as campus student elections. It was also broken down what these elections were for, where to find information, and encouraging students to register to vote.
There was a session on New Visions for education, this was focusing on curriculum improvements such as inclusivity and the benefits it would have on mental health & wellbeing. It was also about students being transparent about their experience, if students felt that a session isn’t relevant to their assignments, attendance drops even though that session is still important to their education. This also needs to be supported by lecturers about why a session might not seem relevant but emphasising the importance of it still being applicable in the career path.
There was also a session on building alternatives locally with Black Communities. The session was delivered to engage delegates in a different way and take a different approach to understand support for students locally and off-campus, but also exploring different emotional outlets and activities to support positive well-being. The sessions allowed delegates to creatively understand issues and definitions of justice to different kinds of students.
This year's National Conference was a very positive and empowering environment for the student movement after 12 months of students being scapegoated throughout the pandemic, which was echoed by all Delegates during the conference. We are happy that all the policies were passed and will give all Student Unions’ & Representatives a sense of relief and a positive direction for the year ahead.
- Amber, Connor, Carter & Tuesday (NUS Delegates 2021)
Have something to say about writing an article on the Students' Union wesbite? Get in touch at unionmarketing@staffs.ac.uk or have your say: