Despite CfE's plan for weekly lobbies of Downing Street not being heard at the emergency NEC meeting, at NUS National Convention at Warwick University, a plan from SWSS's Helen Salmon to hold a mass lobby of parliament before the education funding plans are announced in October was passed. Whether it will be a 'mass' lobby, or the normal sabbaticals-only affair is yet to be seen. Also at convention, the priority campaigns were launched, despite the lack of the actual documents and leadership hoped to dispel concerns from union officers over the new NUS card, and the 'factual inaccuracies' in educationet's original coverage of the plan.
After failing to spot any 'inaccuracies', besides Splash Plastic/NUS being used once, because it was not known which would take the interest away from students (it's Splash Plastic), we've decided to publish some more of the 'facts', as NUS and ITM have come under sharp criticism from The Student Zone, who claim they have simply rehashed the plan they took to them in November last year. Their plan is inherently the same but has some differences. Students will get a proper rate of interest (opposed to none), and while still getting some up-front cash discounts, money held on their card accounts will only be available when they finish (or leave) their course to help pay off loans quickly. This will become even more important if commercial loan rates are introduced, but on the downside fails to recognise a key issue of student debt, that although students will be greatly advantaged by a pot of cash to clear debts or make payments managable on graduation, many students drop out because of debt and need more cash whilst at college/university. The amount they receive on graduation will be greatly increased though, as friends and family members will also be able to use cards which would contribute to the students debt reduction account.
The Student Zone went to Holloway Road to see if NUS would be interested in the 'Student Debt Reduction Scheme', which works by putting discounts from retailers on a card held by students, just like the new Splash Plastic NUS card. Despite expecting a meeting with NUS officials, representatives were met by ITM Sales & Marketing Director, David Jackson. Although he liked the idea, he claimed that NUS couldn't do anything because it would be deemed as competition under the 30 year ITM deal. Student Zone continued to work on their scheme and have been lobbying the government on the possibility of 'match funding' money held on graduation and after a consultation document was been sent out through the DfES to HEFCE & the LSC, the SDRS has now gone to Downing Street and is with the PM's Education Advisor.
Despite repeated attempts to get in touch with officers at NUS, the next contact they had was in June. Nadine from the Student Zone explains;
"The next direct contact I had was from Dan Ashley the NUS Press Officer who called me following being asked to comment by Carlton TV and The Mail on Sunday. He was on the attack and refused to listen to what I was saying - he just kept saying that a student wouldn't be better off because they'd still have to pay off the rest of the loan! The only concession he did give, was when I told him of the Government backing that we are trying to get - he agreed that that was a good idea. On talking to the Carlton researcher following this call she said that he was rather strange and was quite awkward, he wouldn't let her get a comment to publish but said what we're doing was basically a load of rubbish and demanded she give him my name & number, hence the call I got."
"The day after this call I found the article on educationet regarding the new NUS swipe card - the concept of which was remarkably similar to ours - students gain discounts but they are transferred to the NUS card and then actually received by the students later on. Also rather coincidental is that the launch of their 'trial' is the same as ours as is the full launch date. From my understanding of the NUS swipecard it appears that they have a very similar set of basic rules but without any real long-term benefits to the students. It is encouraging students to spend more to get a discount in the first place, and when they do get that discount it is later on down the line and the profits on the interest have disappeared. It seems like the students don't see any real benefit. It's quite ridiculous that no-one from the NUS will talk with us as the SDRS is a really interesting project with enormous scope and huge benefits to students and their families.
The Pilot SDRS will be running next term at companies such as Iceland, Argos, The Body Shop, Snow & Rock, BHS, Kangaroo Poo & Littlewoods, with more to come. Institutions currently on board are Cardiff University, City College Coventry and the University of the West of England. Family & friends will also be able to make contributions to a students fund with their own shopping. Student Zone believe the scheme could halve a students total debt.
The other thing that had been at the heart of debate over the new NUS card was the data that would be collected, both through shopping habits and on-line registration and what that data would be used for. There has now been a warning about this issue as Bath University Student Union has had to take down its online student registration system after students, staff and security experts accused it of collecting sensitive personal data in breach of the Data Protection Act. The union was forced to take down the site after the University received complaints from parents, staff and students as students were asked to register their addresses, mobile phone numbers, and details about disabilities and religious beliefs, without posting a privacy policy. Neil Barrett director at IT security consultants IRM was asked to investigate by a parent. He said;
"It would be like asking what religion you were before giving you a library ticket. They were asking for considerably more information than is strictly necessary to establish that you are a student and eligible for a National Union of Students membership card. They should have a Web site which spells out what they are going to do with the data and they should ideally ask students to opt in to supplying sensitive data, rather than opt out."
Daniel Yeo, then president of Bath Students Union, admitted they had got it wrong, but had simply put the paper versions of their monitoring forms online.
"We need to think more about the data protection. We did not make it clear which fields were mandatory and which were compulsory."
The three NUS priority campaigns were 'launched' at NUS Convention, despite the campaign documents themselves being conspicuous by their absence as they "Hadn't been typed up yet". The three campaigns will be on education funding, citizenship and 'catch all' campaign which covers liberation issues from Further Education equality to anti-racism. Controversially, the launch of the liberation campaign was given to part-time Labour Student Helen Symons, opposed to full-time Women's Officer Kat Fletcher, suggesting a path to VP Welfare is being carved out for Symons. The 'funding the future' campaign will campaign against grad tax, in be favour of EMAS, against no commercial loans, and in favour of the limited return of the grant.
The other main event of NUS conference was the emergency NEC meeting in which the proposal from Louise Hutchins and Helen Salmon for a mass lobby of parliament to take place in October before the government's student finance proposals are announced. Unfortunately in the past, so-called mass lobbies have been run as union officers only affairs, with students persuaded that the demo will be for them. Wednesday events which clash with BUSA matches also cut down on participation. The argument has always been 'Students are more likely to come, as they'll only miss half a days lectures max', forgetting how few still get Wednesday afternoons off, whilst the reality is 'Would students want to miss lectures or the only thing all week they look forward to doing???'. MP's and the Government will have to have been significantly influenced, which normally happens only with press coverage, before the demo takes place. This can only be done by making sure that people's latent anger over fees and grant abolition, seen during the last election, is re-ignited. This will only happen with an event worthy of press coverage, as this seems to be the only way the people can influence this government.
Universities and students have been warned that Russian Hackers set to target UK students in identity theft scams. Hackers have been stealing personal information from USA college students such as credit card numbers, addresses and dates of birth. Five universities in the USA have been targeted by installing key logging software on university servers. Dr Neil Barrett from IT security consultants IRM, thinks the UK academic network will be next:
"It's more likely that they will be targeting things such as university proxy servers, so as to be able to pull out the account details, or that they will be key logging campus PCs, because they are not well protected."
Mandy Telford was recently questioned by epolitix (click here for full interview), but not surprisingly was quite supportive of government and didn't always answer the question. Here's a little snippet;
Question: The government wants 50 per cent of young people going into higher education by 2010 - to what extent you think this should be altered to take into account the students' economic background?
Mandy Telford: Absolutely. I think it is - we are supporting this and I think the only way they can do it is to get students from poorer backgrounds. And that is actually what they want to do. Margaret Hodge said last week that the widening access agenda isn't working at the moment, because they have just widened it to people who were going to university anyway. They're getting more from the richer backgrounds rather than targeting those from poorer backgrounds. They're never going to reach it unless they encourage people from poorer backgrounds into university, as well as I think adult returners into education and to FE colleges. It is a huge thing, it isn't just about universities, and we need to be looking at all post-16 education if they actually want to reach their target. Also we would say to them that on tuition fees, as a huge barrier, that they need to give students more money, because students from poorer backgrounds are just not willing to get themselves into this huge amount of debt, so they don't actually apply. They might say to us, 'well, 50 per cent of them don't pay tuition fees', but students coming from that background, they don't want to get into so much debt, they don't actually take that extra step into applying to university because they've got this great perception that they're going to have to pay fees and take out loans and all the rest of it.
There may be a chink in Loughborough University's sporting amour this year, because they are too good. The Unions' football team has been approached by Chesterfield so that the cash starved club can continue to operate a reserve side next season. Chesterfield have been forced to cut back on their playing staff, and the only way they see themselves as able to have enough players to fill their reserves is to call in the boys from Lufbra. With dozens of clubs across the country facing similar financial pressures, similar arrangements may be on the cards. In 1992, Lufbra student Rob Matthews scored twice on his debut for nearby Notts County in their last game in the old first division.
Other Stories
Totally Jewish, Birmingham Threats
Guardian, Students attack Israel boycott
BBC, Students attack Israeli boycott
BBC, University attacks boycott of Israelis
Educationet, new NUS card to contribute to overdrafts
The Student Zone
NUS
epolitix, Telford on student politics- full interview
epolitix, Westminster turns off students Mandy Telford
Computer Weekly, Student site blunder sets off online data alarm bell
Silicon, UK students warned: 'Watch out for ID theft'
