At the NUS Priority Campaigns Launch on Thursday 1st September, the NUS liberation officers were asked to give a five minute speech about how the students we represent are affected by the issues being raised by the NUS priority campaigns

Below is a copy of the speech I gave. If you want more information about the issues I spoke about, or the work of the Women's Campaign in general, drop me an email on jo.salmon@nus.org.uk

NUS has got a vision about an education funding system that is free and fair for all. A system where students can study what they want, where they want. A system that is radically different from the status quo where students are forced to pick the college that matches their bank balance - or where they don’t get to study the course they want, as it’s closing.

This is a vision that the Women’s Campaign shares. We know that education is the key to lifting people out of poverty, to raise life chances and expectations, the first steps on a road to social inclusion and prosperity for all, not just the rich, well-educated elite.

But at the moment, that vision is not being given a chance.

Take a look at the gender statistics for your institution. I can pretty much guarantee you that the majority of students doing arts, social sciences and humanities are women. Then look at science, engineering and technology. The majority of these students will be men.

And this goes on at every level. At school, when young women see their careers advisors, they are all too often encouraged to go into childcare or hairdressing. But their brothers and boyfriends are told about mechanics and construction! Small wonder that 97% of students doing Modern Apprenticeships in engineering are men - and that 97% of students doing childcare are women.

And then you get to university, where you discover that the same inequality continues. From sexual harassment, to being told that women shouldn’t be doing “men’s subjects”, to women being marked down because there is no anonymous marking system.

And if you are a woman with caring responsibilities… Well, good luck! Childcare on campus (or even in the local community!) is rarely available to every student family who needs it - not that you’ll know how many student parents are at your institution because no-one has to collate the figures! So next time lectures are scheduled at 7pm - or reading week is cancelled - or a department relocates or closes down, ask yourself how you would cope with one or more children to look after when childcare costs the earth and even if you’ve got the cash, there aren’t any spaces anyway…

And then, of course, there is everyone’s favourite… Fees, hardship, debt.

It’s bad enough as a student struggling to put food on the table or buy the textbooks you need for your course. But let’s think about what happens after graduation.

We know that women are paid less than men - whether through occupational segregation (childcare pays a lot less than engineering), direct discrimination, and of course, those so-called “career breaks” if we want children.

But being paid less then men for doing the same job doesn’t mean that our debts are any less or that we get a “gender pay gap tax credit”! All it means is that the burden of debt takes longer to pay off, gaining more and more interest each day, leaving us with even less money to pay the rent - let alone take out a mortgage or invest in a desperately-needed pension!

And we know that debt is a deterrent for anyone who might want to go to university but doesn’t know where the cash is coming from. NUS research shows that young women are more likely to be put off from going to university because of debt than men - and that’s before we start looking at ethnic groups or social backgrounds.

How is this fair?

How can we have a system which advantages the Haves and continues to exclude the Have-nots who are, in case you’re wondering, the majority of the population?

NUS’s work will not be done until every who wants to access education, can access education. Gender should not be a deciding factor in education choices. The fact that it is - from the course we study, to how long it takes us to pay off our debts, or whether we study at all - clearly demonstrates that women are excluded from achieving their academic potential.

And in 2005, that is a disgrace.

That’s just one of the reasons why we have the NUS Women’s Campaign and why we are working with the women on your campuses to campaign for change.

When you start talking about student activities, there’s one thing we must remember. It’s not just about the rugby club or the rambling society or even RAG. Student activities must also be about campaigning groups, about political clubs, about liberation societies. Women’s groups and women’s officers need the financial and emotional support of their unions if we are ever going to win the fight for equality.

We need space to organise on campus, the right to run our own campaigns, the autonomy to decide who represents us and what our policy should be.

And without those freedoms, the fight for equality will never be won.

And without equality, there is no vision of a fair education system, there is no widening participation, there is no just society where everyone is given a chance to fulfil their potential and go through the doors that education opens.

So, as we build towards the review of top up fees at the end of the decade and present our vision of education at every level, one thing has to be at the heart of our work:

Equality
Equality
Equality

The Blogs on this site represent the individual views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies or practices of the National Union of Students.

All links in blogs will open in a new browser window.

The permanent URL for this specific blog entry is: http://www.officeronline.co.uk/blogs/josalmon/271270.aspx