Morys Ireland's diary

Last Thursday saw this terms SE regional NUS conference and, in addition to the front page article in this weeks Pugwash which touches on some of the issues, I thought it would be good to give you guys a report on the conference - it's your union after all!

Bursary Under-spend

The conference started with a regional round up of news and the correlation of all the bursary under spends by universities in our region. Bursaries are non-repayable grants given to students from disadvantaged backgrounds (effectively top-up fee rebates) and they're paid for out of our top up fees. Amazingly our university failed to award over £260,000 to students who were entitled to receive bursaries. In total there was an underspend of £3,002,000 in our region and around £19,000,000 in the country as a whole. This is a staggering injustice and underpins the NUS's argument for a national bursary scheme. Part of the problem clearly lies in the complicated forms that we all have to fill out each year from the student finance people - it's not at all clear that by ticking the 'share your information with your university' box that you are submitting an application for a bursary.

No Platform Policy

The conference then split into three 'focus groups' (typical NUS stuff apparently) and I chose to attend the one about the NUS's no platfom policy toward racist groups like the BNP. Personally I was disappointed with this session and it seemed like the same old arguments all over again - I'm sick and tired of the holocaust being used as a reason to fight the BNP. Do BNP members wear jack boots and go around with swastikas on their arm? No, of course not. The BNP are a disgusting element of British society but we will not defeat them or convert their members or voters by branding them as Nazis. Instead of negative campaigning why not hold more 'positive style' events such as celebrations of ethnic minority cultures or public debates around themes like 'what is Islam?' to dispel common myths. The argument needs to be moved on from the traditional 'fascist-bashing' that normally takes place if we are to have any real impact on the spread of racism in our society.

It is worth noting that part of the problem is also the articles in certain newspapers that basically spread hatred to sell papers - the problem being that people's opinions are actually influenced by these articles. Daily Mail syndrome as I like to call it.

There is a NUS Anti Fascism conference on the 27th Feb - contact the Union for details.

Higher Education Funding

Conference was informed that universities in England are to loose £100m for students doing second degrees, the government argument is that this funding will be re-allocated to encourage more students to do degrees in the first place. It was reported that as a result of this adjustment 20% of all part-time students will loose funding and 2% of all full-time students.

UCAS figures show a 5.8% rise in university applications but fewer students from disadvantaged backgrounds and fewer students over 25 are now applying to go to university. This is clearly a good news - bad news situation and highlights some of the discrepancies in government policy on this issue.

There is a higher education funding debate on the 18th March in London being put on by the NUS. It's free to attend and transport will more than likely be arranged by UPSU so get in touch with one of the sabbatical team if your interested in going.

Governance Review

The day's agenda was, in my view, craftily reworked by members of the NEC to avoid any serious discussion of the governance review (a controversial reform of the NUS constitution currently being driven through by the NUS leadership). This was really unnecessary and only adds to the pe...