Friday 30 March 2007

NUS Annual Conference 2007

This was the first NUS Annual Conference that I'd been to and it's also my last. It was a unique experience filled with controversy, bureaucracy, power struggles between factions, humour and the occasional person talking sense.

This is what one delegate had to say about the event in their blog:

"The OIs and the NOLSies claimed that demonstrations don't work with Wes Streeting proposing we fight neo-liberalisation by writing letters, dressing up and being more 'creative!' Well I'm not sure if was street theatre or messages written on f*****g origami that won black people or women the right to vote. Of course we need to be creative as a means of getting people involved. But only national direct action involving tens of thousands of students with the support of British workers (which we have) can win on fees."

For those who don't speak fluent NUS, OI is 'Organised Independent' and NOLS is 'National Organisation of Labour Students'. OIs tend to be Labour supporters, but they don't actually say that. Any true independent is organised if they are running a campaign for election at a massive conference - so why do you need to attach the word 'organised' to the term?

NUS has repeatedly claimed that demonstrations are a last resort. They may be a way of showing the strength of feeling on a particular issue, but if you have too many of them they will lose their effectiveness. Continually having them will make people wonder whether the message will ever get through. You need to have a variety of ways of getting a message across to improve your chances of getting the result you want. I think the delegate's interpretation of the term 'creative' is wrong. It doesn't necessarily mean "theatre or messages written on f*****g origami". It means to think up fresh ideas. These new ideas then need to be thought through properly, instead of being totally reactionary. If you are reactionary then you risk failure.

The same delegate also had this to say:

"NUS refused to fight for a free and fully funded education system and instead voted to hit minority students hard by maintaining its policy of supporting ineffective and humiliating means tested grants."

Similar opinions were expressed in this delgate's blog. Everybody has a right to their own opinion, but I have to disagree on both points. Firstly, a free education system won't work. It might have in the past, but more people attend university now, facilities have increased and research is even more diverse. If you want to maintain a high standard of education the funding has to be there, so money has to be paid. However, I think we should still campaign using the 'Keep the Cap slogan'. Lifting it would mean more money going to universities, but they would become much less accessible to many people. The ideas of 'free education' and 'Keep the Cap' seem to have been merged at some point, which causes confusion. This needs to be cleared up and thankfully, after talking to Wes Streeting (NUS's VP Education) about it, he says this is going to be one of things he will do. I hope he does actually do that, or I will be both disappointed and angry. Yes, politicians can lie - but not getting a clearer definition will mean serious problems with the campaign.

Secondly, the idea of universal grants will not work - I must have said this a million times. Yes, students who need money will get it, but it also means that the richer students who don't need the money will get it aswell. That money could be redistributed to more worthwhile areas, but in that situation it would be wasted. Means testing means that only the people who need the money will get it. All that is needed is reform of the means testing system to make it better for students, not a complete change.

Other education issues that were discussed were plagiarism, degree classifications and the admissions system. On the subject of the Post-Qualification Applications system, Wes Streeting said this:

"Naturally these areas are vital to students. Post qualification assessment determines a less hectic and arbitrary entry process, while reform of degree classification has the power to influence future graduates’ job prospects."

I agree with him - PQA will work. It will be a more accurate representation of a student's abilities. The current system of using predicted grades is totally inaccurate as all it takes for a grade to change is a poor performance in an exam.

This issue of degree classifications was interesting. The motion that debated stated that the current setup doesn't help employees. It also stated that the pass/fail model wouldn't help either, but it didn't actually state a solution to the problem. I don't think there is a problem with the current degree classifications though. It separates students and if any further separation to determine quality is needed, you have things called job interviews, CVs and application forms. What's wrong with that?

With plagiarism, it is definitely important that it's detected to ensure fairness. However, the proposed use of software such as Turnitin won't work. It might mean the detection process is faster but it all depends on the work that is available in the database. If the right work isn't in there when e.g. an essay is checked, then plagiarism goes undetected. You might be able to add more and more work to the database, but there will always be some that doesn't go in there. Also, it doesn't address the issue of making sure every student knows exactly what the definition of plagiarism is. It gets more difficult when there are international students coming from areas where there are different definitions.

There was also a huge debate over anti-semitism/racism, as highlighted in this Guardian Unlimited article. One of the points discussed was whether the NUS should adopt the EUMC's definition of racism, which is:

"Racism shall mean the belief that a ground such as race, colour, language, religion, nationality or national or ethnic origin justifies contempt for a person or a group of persons, or the notion of superiority of a person or a group of persons."

Racism is something which I absolutely detest. It has been responsible for the deaths and torment of many innocent people throughout our history and I welcome the fact that a definition will be adopted because then you have a starting point which helps with creating strategies for campaigns. Sam Lebens, a member of the NEC made an impassioned speech as part of the debate and he explained he would like to see the faces of those with racist views, instead of them hiding behind secret ballots. Some saw that as intimidation. I didn't see it that way though. He was merely angry at people who are cowardly and who don't choose to express and defend their viewpoints.

Apart from the impassioned debates, there were also elections. Gemma Tumelty (President), Stephen Brown (National Secretary) and Wes Streeting (VP Education) all got re-elected with big majorities, meaning that there will be consistency on the exec. There will also be some new faces providing new ideas and viewpoints.

Ama Uzowuru was elected as VP Welfare with a big majority. I was going to vote for Richard Angell. He had a big campaign and some good ideas. However, Ama also had good ideas, the support of many of the NEC which will ensure harmony next year and she also had a far better election speech - the speech being the thing that changed my mind about who to vote for.

Dave Lewis was narrowly elected as the new Treasurer ahead of Sam Rozati. I voted for Sam though because he has three years experience on the Finance Committee whereas Dave only has one year's experience as NUSSL chair. Sam also made more points about finance in his speech, making it more relevant to the role.

Beth Walker was elected as the new VP FE. Beth will take over from Ellie Russell, who has done a fantastic job and is a great NEC member.

There was also the Block of 12 elections. I feel their will be a strong block next year. As well as that, there were the elections for Steering Committee, Finance Committee and Rules Revision Committee. RRC had the funniest election speeches. One speech was a rap, another featured the tearing up of the NUS Constitution and the third was just full of jokes and one-liners.

Finally, a few points about reform. Conference is incredibly bureaucratic with too many rounds of speeches, procedural motions, parts and votes. The training for first time delegates was very poor and needs to include more details about protocol when debating motions and amendments. National Council is a waster of time and money as it costs £50k a year for three meetings. They could use that money to afford a full-time International Officer and Mature Students Officer (two things that were wanted by many, but the relevant motions got pushed off the agenda). Also, the number of delegates is an issue. NUS try to get unions to either affiliate or re-affiliate, but that will eventually mean there is not enough space in the Conference hall! There also needs to be more involvement from the FE sector - I hope that is addressed next year.

So, what do other people think about NUS Conference and my views on it?

Technorati tags: NUS, NUS Annual Conference, Student Politics

4 comments:

Tim Roll-Pickering said...

Any true independent is organised if they are running a campaign for election at a massive conference - so why do you need to attach the word 'organised' to the term?

Because historically there have been two kinds of independents in NUS - those who stood and operated by themselves and those who eschewed labels but operated as a faction. It got to the point where different terms were used to distinquish them - "Webberites"/"Owainites" or "Independent Right" for what we now call OIs, "Fabbytes"/"Mertcanites" for a now gone "Independent Centre" faction, "Independent Reformist" for those who particularly campaigned to remove the factional stranglehold, "Independent Independent" for candidates who waned to emphasise they really weren't in any independent faction and so forth.

"Organised Independent" came about because calling that group "Webberites" or "Owainites" was getting sillier the longer we got from the days of Webber and Owain. So "Organised Independent" stuck and the OIs even use it themselves these days.

Hanif Leylabi said...

This view on demonstrations suffers from a lack of knowledge of different struggles through history which have ALL employed the tactics of national demonstrations. If it is a last reort then we have already failed and might as well all pack up and go home.

A free education won't work? In the past we were in a post war situation with a nearly bankrupt treasury yet we still had a free education system. Yes there are far more student in HE now but there is also a lot more money in the governments hand. Also to ingore the fact we are spending over £50 a day on war in Iraq and £76 billion on trident nuclear weapons really is beyond me!

I do not believe in the right of the state of Israel to exist. According to the NUS this makes me racist despite the fact I do far far more anti-racism work than, I'd guess, 90% of NUS delegates.

Many people voted against the motion because they were worried they wouldn't be able to criticise Israel. for them to be accused of being racist and therefore intimidated when voting against was nothing short of obscene.

Anonymous said...

I have never deliberately attended National Council, though I did burst into a meeting at ULU once, but that aside...

From my understanding, National Council is primarily a forum for holding the NEC to account between Conferences. The question I would ask simply is, does Conference actually hold the NEC to account? Sure it will hold those standing for re-election to account and potentially Conference can slap people with censures in the NEC Report & Plan and reject the NUS Estimates (the budget), but does it actually hold the NEC to account?

National Council was created in the mid-90s when Conference voted to scrap its Winter Conference meeting and has suffered from lack of respect ever since. It is regionally based, with reps elected by Regional Conferences. It cannot make any policy (well it can as an interim, but if the policy is too political, Council will acknowledge this should be left for Conference to decide!) and its only 'authority' is to give censures or commendations out to NEC members - bear in mind you can collect as many censures that Council can dish out! It has no effect. Still, Council can also remove responsibility from an NEC member, but again, this is relatively toothless.

There needs to be a separation of power between the policy-making conference meetings and the NEC which is charged with implementing policy. Else we will keep this odd situation where a toothless Council tries to do things poorly and badly as it is not empowered to act in fear of stepping on Conference's toes or on the NEC's.

And let's not forget this is the time of year when the NEC is actually bigger than the Council!

Personally, I'd scrap Council, but the whole relationship and makeup of Council and NEC needs to be looked at in relation to a sovereign and policy-making & powerful Conference.

For me, people get passionate about Conference because it is relevant - most who have been will have an opinion, they recognise it is the top dog, its exciting, makes policy, good for networking, and gives us all a sense of ownership (albeit we lose votes!) but most wouldn't even entertain a few extra breaths to think about Council!

Anonymous said...

David, at no point have I nor any member of my faction or group ever denied or hidden their political affiliations. Let me refer you to my Blog on Officeronline. The first link on my interests is the Labour Party, anyone who has ever asked me has been told.

Secondly, "Organised Independent" was a term attributed to my group not one which we have taken on ourselves. However, the difference between us and other gorups is that we are independent of an organised, outside line but not of eachother. We work together on common issues but do not take a line from an outside organiser.

If people do want to talk about what the organised Indies are or why they orgnaise come and talk to us because I never get approached about it, suprising given the amount people write about us.

Oh and finally - Independent right. What a load of old Sh*t. Please check our NEC/Conference Voting records. Our line is consistently more left wing than many other "groupings" or individuals on the NEC.