The most popular turnout in the history of HUU elections, the most amount raised by RAG in recent years, the most successful Course Rep system the union has seen, a record-breaking amount of people on Tour from both the AU and societies, the fullest union council ever – it seems that participation is not just high in the union, but positively flourishing. So, why is it then, at a time when students such as ourselves stand on a precipice of change on a national scale, participation and interest in the NUS is at rock bottom?
When interviewing a random selection of Hull students, 70% correctly identified the NUS as the National Union of Students, 30% were aware of the annual conference taking place last month, and shockingly not one could fully identify who was elected as NUS president at said conference, despite him being featured in the national press on more than one occasion. Surely, this irrefutable evidence of NUS apathy is worrying, especially at a time when spending cuts are heading the student way.
But why should we be interested about the NUS and what they do at conference? To put it simply, because it directly affects us. It is at the conference that delegates from unions across the country (including five from Hull, elected during the Sabbatical elections) vote on how to tackle issues, what campaigns to fight for and the best way to represent students, on national and local levels. Some of the current hot topics gaining momentum and notoriety include setting a minimum price for how much SU bars can sell alcohol for, an issue that given the recent events in the union, will surely divide students.
However, Chris Marks, HUU’s VP Education, and a staunch opposer of the NUS, feels that the institution is failing its members, stating ‘It is not a visible presence, many students just see it as a discount card – which used to be free. It is fighting for students to pay more fees, fighting for students to pay more money on alcohol and asks them to pay £10 for a student card which used to be free. No wonder the students are disengaged when it acts like a barrier’. He certainly has a point. When asked what they felt towards the NUS, one student eloquently replied ‘Well you get a free cheese burger’. Is this what we want from our national body? Is it right that students, a demographic that is regularly abused by government, are so ignorant about the institution whose function is to protect and support their welfare?
Confused, I contacted that recently-elected NUS president that no one could name, Aaron Porter, and asked him how he plans to attract more students. ‘We can make NUS more relevant by working with SUs to communicate our wins. I’m personally committed to offering more NUS content to student media – we need to grow our database of student emails so students can hear from us directly, and we need to continue to support SUs to think about how they can continue to engage with us.’ This all sounds well and good, but the cynic inside me doubts Porter really can compete against the lack of interest shown to the NUS. His answer is just too clinical, it reeks too much of bureaucratic politics, at the expense of, in my mind, real action.
Marks suggests that because ‘a lot of students aren’t engaged in the NUS [...] Aaron Porter gets away with saying “I represent 7 million students.” We need students to stand up and say “you don’t represent me”, which means that a man who was elected by 400 delegates wouldn’t be able to get away with that.’ adding ‘Don’t legitimise the NUS, build an alternative and get involved in local grassroots activity. The NUS is a poison that leeches and slimes off student activity.’
Whether the NUS is a poison or not, it is easy to see why the majority of students are happy in their ignorance. The institution is alien; it is too far away and too top heavy to be truly accessible and engaging to students. Although impressed with Porter’s enthusiasm and prompt reply to questioning, he comes across as another politician in waiting, a trained debater who may be at risk of wasting too much time arguing small words rather than taking action.
This leaves two choices, if the NUS wants to attract students: either we implement strong reforms within the NUS or we disaffiliate and start again, with a body which starts with the students and ends up changing government policy, not the other way around. Either way it’s your action or non-action that decides.
Tom Peel
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