I’ve always been a good boy when it comes to blogging. I always enjoy reading other people’s blogs when I get the time (NEC members, student officers, political bloggers) and I’ve held a pretty much non-stop chronology – laced with opinion pieces – since I started on the NEC. My problem is that I am also a perfectionist and hate putting up new blogs out of chronological order. Anyway, I digress. I am sorry for not blogging more regularly – it’s a new years resolution for 2007/8! So here’s what I got up to in April and May in a more compact form than usual (so much to say but so little time to catch up!)…

ATL Conference, Bournemouth – Tuesday 3rd April

Spoke at an ATL Conference fringe on student debt, which was particularly pertinent that day as ATL had just released their own report about the impact of PGCE top-up fees on access to teaching and student teacher hardship. It went down well and I got some good feedback. Sadly I missed the photo opp with the Education Guardian as I had to leave to go to NUSSL convention in Liverpool, which was great!

European High Level Policy Forum – Wednesday 4th

After NUSSL it was down to London for the HE Sector High Level Policy Forum on Europe, which I was chairing. It brings together the chief executives of Universities UK, Guild HE, the funding councils from England, Wales, Scotland and NI and the Quality Assurance Agency, as well as representatives from NUS (i.e. me!) and the Department for Education & Skills.

We discussed the HE sector position ahead of the Bologna Ministerial Summit, which was fairly united. Naturally I was pushing for a greater emphasis on the social dimension (which deals with access and equality) and mobility (the ability of students and academics to move more freely across Europe).

You can find out more on the HE Europe Unit here

Annual Leave (inc. Good Friday and Easter Monday) – 5th, 6th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th

A rare occasion that’s for sure! But desperately needed!

TUC Youth Conference, Leicester – Friday 13th – Sunday 15th

I attended with other NEC members – the first time NUS has sent an observing delegation following the adoption of the NUS-TUC Protocol agreement.

LGBT Conference Compositing – Sunday 15th

Also on Sunday, which meant myself and Stephen leaving TUC early and driving down with scissors and glue for one of my favourite parts of the NUS democratic cycle. It doesn’t get much more fun than this!

Week commencing 16th April – a mixed bag of a week

A mixed week comprised of anti-BNP campaigning in advance of the local elections in Dartford and Thurrock, a meeting with Bill Rammell to lobby the government ahead of the Bologna Ministerial Summit , a meeting with the National Audit Office to feed into a big piece of research they’re doing on retention and the first NEC meeting since annual conference.

Week commencing 23rd April – conferences galore!

The week began with Mature Students’ Conference on Monday and Tuesday. I got a lot out of the conference in terms of policy discussion on education issues affecting mature students, including 2 year degree pilots so thanks to my group for that! I also attending RAWS Conference (Research And Welfare Staff in students’ unions) to talk about the Office of the Independent Adjudicator and the work we are doing around SU satisfaction with the OIA’s service and then headed over to Birmingham for LGBT Conference, which was the best one I’d been to in terms of size, atmosphere and policy discussion – a real tribute to the work that Scott and Claire have done to build the campaign during the past year! I ran a workshop at LGBT conference on combating the BNP (rather last minute and with special thanks to members of Student Respect present) and an anti-BNP campaign morning which got a good turnout in a ward with a BNP councillor!

Week commencing 30th April

Took some annual leave again to campaign in the Scottish Parliamentary elections. Although I did return early from planned leave for an NEC meeting on Friday 4th May. It was a closed meeting to approve the planned organisational restructure.

Week commencing 7th May – ESIB is now the European Students’ Union (ESU)

I spent the entire week, from Sunday 6th to Sunday 13th May living in and around ULU for the 52nd Board Meeting and Seminar of ESIB – the National Unions of Students in Europe, that NUS UK were hosting with sponsorship from the Department for Education & Skills and the Council of Europe.

Held just a week before the Bologna Ministerial Summit in London, between 6th-13th May 2007, the event provided an excellent opportunity to bring together student leaders from across Europe to prepare for the summit and to consider some of the key issues facing students and institutions across Europe as we continue ever closer to achieving our common goal of a fully functioning European Higher Education Area.

The focus of the seminar element of the event focused on discrimination in Higher Education. This theme was chosen for a number of reasons:

1. Its relevance to the social dimension of the Bologna Process and a recognition – a continuing priority for ESIB, NUS UK and other ESIB members;

2. Its timeliness, given the European Year of Equality and opportunities for collaboration with the Council of Europe's All Different All Equal campaign;

3. Recognition amongst ESIB members of NUS UK’s longstanding commitment and expertise on equalities issues, following our continued promotion of the equalities agenda within ESIB.

I am really grateful to all those volunteers from students’ unions, NUS staff and Liberation Committees and the NUS NEC who made the event such a success. Particular thanks to Bubble!

As a result of the event, we have been asked and elected to co-chair the Equality Working Group. Kat Stark will be coordinating this work from NUS UK. We also changed the name of ESIB to the European Students’ Union (ESU). You can visit the website at www.esu-online.org.

I did duck out one day that week to judge the London Education Partnership Awards (LEPA) more on that later.

Week commencing 14th May – What a load of Bologna!

Yes, it’s true that I am famous for my Bologna jokes. And no, they’re not especially funny. Apologies to NEC and delegates for not being able to make Regional Conferences. I was preparing for my role as a student representative as part of the UK government’s delegation to the Bologna Ministerial Summit in London, whilst also being very ill from the previous week’s stresses and strains!

The summit was a success overall. I’m trying to think of ways to better engage the membership with the European agenda and would be interested to hear of any ways in which we could creatively do this. You can read more about the Bologna Process here

On the 18th I also attended a Degree Attainment Working Group looking at the achievement of Black students in HE on behalf of Ruqayyah.

Week commencing 21st May – some time in the office at last!

The week started in Manchester with a Quality Takes Time event run jointly with the QAA, a couple of office days and a DfES Capability Review focus group at UCL. Mostly though, an opportunity to catch up after weeks out of the office!

Week commencing 28th May – a week for thinking

My week started on a Bank Holiday with discussion of my personal relationships on a certain message board. Fortunately I have a thick skin! I spent two mind-expanding days at a Mass Higher Education and Internationalisation Seminar in Surrey looking at the impact of massification and internationalisation on the student experience. I was the opening speaker, which was a little bit daunting as contributors were leading experts in their field and some came from as far as Australia! Comments were well received. It was conducted under the Chatham House rule so I won’t be publishing my comments or the comments/papers of other contributors but you can get the gist of what I said from forthcoming blogs on students as consumers.

I also spent a day in the office and attended a meeting of the NUS Senior Management Team.

That’s all for now. I’ll blog June and July shortly and will try and keep my blogs more up to date in the future!

Wes

wes.streeting@nus.org.uk

07738 477 353

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