NUS Disabled Students’ Committee

"The Disabled Students Committee are deeply concerned and disappointed by our national union's position on targeted grants. We note that we were not consulted in advance of this discussion by any officer or student. We condemn the decisions of the members of the national executive who supported targeted grants at last annual conference.

The current means testing system is massively flawed. We feel that there is no system of means testing that will ever include us and do not trust the government to introduce a fair system of means testing. We have been let down my means testing time and time again. We also have a principle that education should be free, fair and funded by universal grants for all. We are guided by our conference policy.

We will be actively involved in an attempt to overturn the national union's policy at NUS Annual Conference 2007. For some of us, this is challenging. NUS has incredibly inaccessible democratic structures, for example, expecting students to engage with an annual conference that lasts 14 hours a day.

One of our priority campaign this year is called 'Our Opinions Count' and relates to the fact that decisions about our lives should be led by us. We know best about what is right for us. Student officers who supported targeted grants would do well to learn from this campaign. They have introduced a policy that affects us deeply. They have done so without consulting with our campaign and direct contradiction to our campaign policy.

We ask you to join us in the fight against means testing in education funding."

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