Oct
31
NUS: The Big Debate
Filed Under Messages
With a debate and vote coming up on Tuesday 4th November about NUS re-affilition, I felt that it was only right to say a couple of things in relation to the NUS.
As a student, I cannot see what the NUS does for us. Rather, the only thing I know the NUS does for us is provide us with their logo, to use on our student cards, so that whenever we go shopping at Topman we can get 10% off… Oh but wait, even this common view that your University card gets you a host of discounts is wrong anyway, as one must fork out an extra £10 for an ‘NUS Extra’ card for the delights of discounts at McDonalds, Netto and Matalan.
I must admit that the debate over NUS affiliation had never crossed my mind prior to the last couple of days. I genuinely always believed that the NUS was not a bad thing at all, rather the opposite. However, I decided to do a little bit of research, in the most modern of fashions, by searching for ‘Wes Streeting’ (NUS President) on YouTube. What I found was Wes’ successful speech to become NUS President. So what did I find?
He tells those who think about dis-affiliating to “dust [y]ourselves down” and “dig in and stay tuned” as “tomorrow is worth fighting for”. And what was Mr Streeting’s view for “tomorrow”?
· An NUS that is “representative and relevant”. How? By providing “flexible childcare” for all Universities and colleges.
· An NUS that halts the “dangerous and destructive agenda for the marketisation and privatisation of our education system”. How? By using the NUS as a “weapon” for students to “bring the free marketers to their knees”.
· He says that “best way to argue against the fact that NUS is just a discount card is through campaigning” for issues such as “votes at 16”.
Mr Streeting’s narrow mindedness aside, the thing which distresses me most is his attacks on tuition fees, saying he has a “record as long as (his)…arm for fighting fees”. He rallies everyone to campaign so that every student vote is an “Anti-fascist” vote, an admirable and supported idea, except when his idea of ‘fascism’ is those who believe that University is a privilege after hard grafting at school, rather than a right like schooling, which, as it should be as a basic right, is available to all.
How can Mr Streeting not see that making students pay for their University tuition is right in order to maintain high levels of teaching and facilities, rather than place yet another burden on the taxpayer? How can he not see that what students really want is more transparency in seeing where their money goes?
Sadly, not everything in life is going to be free. I detest Mr Streeting’s statement that he has a long record for fighting fees- who on earth does he think is going to pay? Obviously not big businesses as he attacks privatisation. So it is obviously the government he wants to fund our higher education. Why should parents, or a single parent, with children who have not gone to University, or with no children at all, spend their money on funding someone else’s higher education which will have no benefits for that family yet inevitably lead to that student earning higher salaries in the future? The logic is simply not there. Surely it would be better to save that family’s hard earned money and put it back into their pockets so that they have more money to pay for bills and food and their future in general?
I am not writing here as the saviour of the NUS. I am not writing in a general ‘Tory rant’. I am writing, because I have always believed in value for money, transparency for fees and most importantly, common sense. Therefore what I suggest is that the Students’ Union of the University of Nottingham pulls out of the NUS, saving the approximate £60,000 per year membership, and spend that on improving our facilities, such as the currently vastly under stocked library, and reducing the price of food and drink in our campus bars and cafes- both issues which effect every student on campus.