January is supposed to be a quiet month for the education sector. This year was definitely an exception to that rule. At regional conferences at the end of the month I reported on three big issues that I had been focussing on throughout the month; issues which reflect three bad news stories for fair access to higher education.

The first obviously concerned the Government’s plans to reallocate £100m of funding away from students studying for Equivalent or Lower Qualifications (ELQ’s). Following on from work last term, myself and Gemma started the month on the front foot with this issue, contacting MPs to support a motion tabled on the floor of the House of Commons to oppose the move. In addition to putting together NUS’ response to the inquiry announced by the Innovation, Universities and Skills Select Committee, I went along to the public hearing to listen to Gemma give evidence (see here).

The second bad news story was around admissions. We spent a lot of time number crunching the latest UCAS stats only to discover that the proportion of people from lower socio-economic backgrounds and mature students have dropped since the introduction of top-up fees, painting a very different picture to that put across by ministers. You can read more here.

The third – which occupied a lot of my time – was the long-awaited release of the Annual Report of the Office For Fair Access which revealed a massive underspend of £24MILLION on bursaries and widening participation outreach. The best news coverage was provided by the new look Times Higher Education magazine which you can find here, but you might also like to check out the articles on the BBC, Guardian and Telegraph websites.

You can find out more about the campaign actions we have planned this term, as well as the presentations we delivered on regional conferences here.

This month I also launched a new feature from the NUS Education & Quality Unit – our brand new Education Information bulletins. Aimed primarily at education officers, course reps and education policy staff they’re designed to give you a brief insight to both live issues that your reps will probably hear about at committee level as well as ongoing issues in UK Higher Education for general information. They’re distributed via e-mail so if you’d like to go on the distribution list please email alex.bols@nus.org.uk. You can also find the archived bulletins in their own little section in the education zone on Officeronline.

You may have also noticed that I’ve been used as a guinea pig for a new series of NUS podcasts. I’ve record two so far: one on bursaries and one on the learner voice agenda. You can listen online!

January Diary

So, here’s a quick run down of what else I did, day-by-day, during January:

7th: Act4EU Parliamentary Reception
8th: NEC Meeting in which we passed the financial report and estimates for Annual Conference. Big congrats to Dave Lewis for providing the clearest financial information I’ve ever received on the NEC – a real testament to his achievements as National Treasurer this year!
9th-10th: Education & Welfare Residential (North, Midlands and East), which was a well attended and incredibly enjoyable event!
10th-11th:Board away day for the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for HE
14th-15th: Education & Welfare Residential (London and South)
15th: Spoke on the importance of the Learner Voice and changing student demand at the Teaching and Learning Conference organised by Kingston University.
16th: I went head to head with Dennis Hayes of Academics For Academic Freedom in a No Platform policy debate at Canterbury Christ Church Students’ Union. Afterwards, I went over to the House of Commons for the rally organised by Abortion Rights ahead of the debate over the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in support of the NUS Women’s Campaign. Alex Kemp spoke from a Disabled Students’ Campaign perspective and received by far the best response from the audience. Photos will be going up on Facebook shortly!
17th: Went IUS Select Committee hearing on ELQ’s then for a Senior Management Team meeting at NUS HQ.
18th: Spent most of the morning preparing for the OFFA report announcement then went to Leicester for a Unions94 meeting.
21st-22nd: In NUS HQ preparing for OFFA report announcement.
23rd: Spoke at an SRHE event on the Higher Education Funding debate.
24th: OFFA report release!
25th: Attended an Aldwych Group meeting in Warwick, followed by dinner with the vice-chancellors of Warwick and Bristol universities. We then got to attend a One World Week concert which was AMAZING. Warwick has a well deserved reputation for the best One World Week in the UK!
28th-31st: NUS regional conferences.
1st Feb: Close of NUS nominations so I took annual leave to hand in my nomination form and manifesto for National President. I won’t be using my NUS blog to campaign, so please check out my Facebook Group instead. My website will be going live in the near future.

Other candidates are: Ruqayyah Collector, Ciarán Norris and Daniel Randall.

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