2005

Education Campaign

• NUS publishes its Education Manifesto, setting out its policy goals on a wide range of educational issues.

• NUS’ VP Education is a member of the Board of the OIA, which becomes the designated operator of the student complaints scheme with effect from 1 January 2005.

• NUS publishes a briefing on ‘Tuition Fees and Bursaries’, and presents this as evidence to the Education and Skills Select Committee.

• NUS meets with Sir Martin Harris, Director of OFFA (Office For Fair Access), to discuss its concerns.

• NUS is represented on the Burgess Group, looking into a national credit framework system to enhance flexibility and mobility amongst students in higher education – which aims to replace the degree classification system.

FE

• NUS establishes a network of ‘FE advocates’, officers and students from FE-sector colleges who are prepared to attend lobbies and meetings with decision-makers to voice students’ opinions.

• At an Education Lobby in the House of Commons, students are addressed by Ivan Lewis, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Skills and Vocational Education, and John Brennan, Chief Executive of the Association of Colleges. NUS uses this event to launch the interim results of the ‘Further Education Students’ Unions Development Survey’, which show evidence of how seriously under-resourced unions are in the FE sector.

• NUS submits an initial response to the review by Sir Andrew Foster on ‘The Future Role of FE Colleges’.

• NUS facilitates a Foster Review focus group with FE advocates.

• NUS acts as a ‘critical friend’ for a paper written for the Foster Review on ‘The Student Experience of FE’, and has input into six other Foster Review research papers.

• NUS welcomes the Foster Report, which centres on the ‘learner voice’ (representation) in recommendations for the FE sector. Sir Andrew Foster calls for FE colleges to consult learners, and for more support for active and effective student representation.

International Students’ Campaign

• International students picket the Home Office in protest at Government proposals to increase ‘leave to remain’ charges.

• NUS publishes the results of the international students’ banking survey.

NUS sits on the Joint Ed ucation Taskforce, set up by the Home Office to look at issues relating to international students and visas/charges.

Welfare Campaign

• NUS lobbies for more comprehensive information from universities and students on teaching quality to be made available on-line. As a result, the Teaching Quality Information website (www.tqi.ac.uk) gives access to official information about the quality of education in UK universities and colleges, as well as the results of the National Student Survey (NSS). This shows what recent students thought about the quality of their education at institutions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, by subject. The site becomes live in September 2005.

• NUS publishes a report on students’ unions’ experiences of private halls of residence.

• NUS continues its quality assurance work, hosting further events with the QAA and launching a new ‘Quality Takes Time’ database – www.officeronline/quality Following years of NUS campaigning, housing benefit is extended to certain categories of students living in halls of residence.

• The Burslem Quality Assurance Review Group assesses the new QAA institutional process and reports that the SWS and student involvement has been a success; it commends the work that NUS has done in training officers through their ‘Quality Takes Time’ events.

LGBT Campaign

• NUS’ LGBT campaign organises a lobby of Parliament against a legal loophole that leaves them unprotected from discrimination in everyday situations.

Women’s Campaign

• The NUS Women’s Campaign produces and distributes the ‘Being a Women’s Officer’ handbook.

Black Students’ Campaign

• The NUS Black Students’ Campaign launches an audit of institutions to find where anonymous marking is in place.

NUS-USI

• For the first time since coming to power in 1997, the Labour Government is defeated in a Westminster committee debate – the Northern Ireland Grand Committee votes to reject variable fees for students in Northern Ireland. NUS and USI officers attend the lobby.

• Students from Northern Ireland also travel to Westminster to lobby the House of Lords as it debates the bill that will allow variable fees to be charged in Northern Ireland.

• NUS-USI secures a commitment from all political parties in Northern Ireland to seek to revoke the legislation passed on variable fees, when the Assembly is restored.

NUS Scotland

• Following lobbying by NUS Scotland, the remit of the Scottish Public Services’ Ombudsman is extended to cover further and higher education and enable students to complain, free of charge, to an independent body.

• NUS Scotland regularly meets with and lobbies MSPs to remind them of the Scottish Executive’s commitment not to introduce top-up fees in Scotland. After campaigning by NUS Scotland, the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act is amended to stop ministers being allowed to introduce variable tuition fees in Scotland. The Act also formally recognises students’ rights in law and gives the Scottish Funding Council the obligation to meet the needs of learners.

• The SPARQS project, run by NUS Scotland, is extremely successful with over 3000 class representatives receiving training since 2002. NUS Scotland is awarded a further two-year contract to operate the scheme.

• Pressure from NUS Scotland results in bursaries for Scottish students being increased in value by 11%, and the threshold for obtaining bursaries being lowered so that more students can access them.

• After campaigning by NUS Scotland, the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Councils merge to form a single body for funding all colleges and universities.

• NUS Scotland and the Scottish Trades Union Congress establish Unionlink, to give support to students with jobs.

NUS Wales

• NUS Wales’ continued campaign forces the National Assembly for Wales to rule out variable top-up fees for Welsh domicile students studying in Wales.