The headlines in the Education press have failed to bring glad tidings for students over the festive season. Assuming our members have had time to browse the pages of Education Guardian in between pulling pints and stacking shelves to clear their overdrafts, they will have shared my gloomy reading of the prospects looming for us in 2006.

Already the impact of top-up fees is being felt and it comes as no surprise. Leaked statistics reported in The Times and later supported by a similar article in The Guardian suggested that application rates could be down by as much as 13% at some institutions. The Minister for Higher Education naturally offers a more conservative estimate as to how far application rates will have fallen on the eve of the introduction of variable top-up fees this Autumn. Bill Rammell recently admitted that he expected a drop in applications of around 2% when the figures are released. Even so, the significant jump in applications last year, coupled with the recent article by Stephen Hoare in Education Guardian reporting a last minute rush for courses starting this month, all point towards the same conclusion: students are voting with their feet and doing everything they can to avoid paying top-up fees.

We warned during the debate about the Higher Education Act that top-up fees would deter students from poorer backgrounds. We warned that a market in Higher Education would restrict choice and would leave students making decisions based on their ability to pay, rather than their potential to achieve. We did so based on a wealth of evidence in our favour; even research published by UUK revealed that lack of money and fear of debt is a key factor which deters students from participating in Higher Education.

Yet we are losing the battle for public opinion and losing it badly. At the height of our campaign against fees, over 75% of the public backed our campaign. However, the British Social Attitudes survey, the annual gauge of public opinion across a range of issues, reveals that 77% of the British public – from all backgrounds – believe that students should pay something for their education. No wonder DfES ministers are smiling. Their public information campaign, backed by NUS, might have prevented a freefall in application rates, but it has also dealt a terrible blow to our support amongst the voting public.

With the government and friends successfully ‘selling fees’ and the public buying in to their arguments, is it any wonder that David Cameron chose to break the manifesto he helped to write, by backing top-up fees. I do not support the view of those who have argued that this is some sort of blessing in disguise. Whilst Tory-bashing can be fun, it is foolhardy to suggest that we could ever defeat a Labour government on Higher Education funding without their backing. We need to pull our socks up and get our act together to ensure that we do not lose the battle altogether to keep the cap.

As if all this news were not bleak enough, the future for mature students looks even gloomier. Malcolm McVicar, the UCLAN vice-chancellor who has been a real friend to the student movement on funding issues over the years, recently highlighted an oft less cited side effect of increasing fees. Whilst application rates for 18-21 year olds tend to dip temporarily, the depression in applications from mature students is more permanent. The introduction of tuition fees saw a significant drop in mature students studying full-time, with many opting to study part-time and other choosing not to enter HE at all.

Further Education has always been a key provider for adult learners, but news from the Association of Colleges offers little comfort for mature students looking to FE as an alternative to University. A welcome focus on 14-19 skills has seen millions of pounds cut from adult education budgets to fund the government’s spending plans. How can the government hope to widen participation from under-represented backgrounds when its policies are resulting in cuts to the very courses that are actually delivering on access?

As 2006 – the year of top-up fees – dawns, I can’t help but feel that we are losing at every twist and turn. Perhaps things wouldn’t feel so bad if I genuinely thought that NUS had put up a good fight, or any kind of fight for that matter, during the past two years, with the notable exception of our Special Nations who are succeeding in making devolution work to the benefit of students.

The saving grace has been the 2010 Coalition, to be launched at the NUS Annual Reception this month. Put together by Julian and Kat, this coalition will include our key partners in the education sector, including the union I work closely with, the NUT.

It’s vital that this coalition is utilised to full effect. The scope and scale of the changes and challenges we face are as broad as the students we are here to support and represent. In the year that variable top-up fees arrive in England we cannot afford to sit back and lick our wounds, or resort to tired old campaigning methods. Two years ago, we lost the vote, but we never lost the argument. Two years on, our arguments remain the same, but the way we campaign has to change in the face of increasing student disengagement, declining support amongst the public and dwindling support in Parliament.

It would be a mistake for us to embrace the politics and tactics of the hard left at this critical juncture, but that does not mean that the status quo, where postcards are dressed up as campaigns, is acceptable.

We need a clear strategy and clear leadership that's able to reconnect our National Union with students on the ground through innovative, imaginative campaigns that have the support and input of student officers.

I believe that during my time as a student activist, a sabbatical officer and a member of the NEC, I have shown the experience, energy and sheer determination to provide that leadership for our campaign and our National Union.

I have therefore decided to stand for election to be the next Vice President Education of NUS, standing on the strength of my record and my ideas to take us forward. I have been actively canvassing the views of officers on the ground across the length and breadth of the country to produce a manifesto that will provide the strength and support to take the fight for Free Education forward.

I hope you will lend me your support. So that together we can make NUS a real campaigning force once more.

Feel free to contact me about my campaign on wes.streeting@nus.org.uk or 07738 477 353.

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