Update from Academic Affairs Officer
Friday 11-11-2016 - 13:08
I hosted the first Academic Affairs Forum of the year last week, which was a great opportunity to provide an update of what I've been working on and broach some big issues, which you can read about below. A huge thankyou to everyone who came along and contributed their ideas!
What Have I Been Up To?
- Developing and delivering Course Rep training
- Attending NUS Zones Conference to contribute to the development of NUS policy on Higher Education and calling for more accessible and practical guidance from NUS on how SU’s and Reps can address widening participation, barriers to learning and postgraduate representation
- Beginning a review of postgraduate academic representation
- Feeding into discussions on the new University Estate Startegy so students have places to study and eat around Lower Mountjoy
- Fighting for greater student consultation on University strategy decisions, particularly in relation to timetabling and tuition fee increases
Higher education policy is changing radically and the Government’s Higher Education Bill currently moving through Parliament envisages far reaching changes to organisation of Universities. The National Union of Students (NUS) and SUs up and down the country are vehemently opposed to many aspects of the Government’s plans, in particular the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) that will link tuition fees to the perceived quality of teaching; the opening up of higher education to more competition and private providers; and plans to create an Office for Students without any student representatives.
NUS have passed a motion to challenge these reforms through the boycotting of the National Student Survey and we need your support to develop an approach that is right for Durham students. At the Forum on Tuesday I introduced the Higher Education Bill and discuss what we think of the Government’s plans and the potential implications of boycotting the NSS.
Here is some reading on the HE Bill and the NUS boycott of the NSS:
The Students' Union will be holding an extraordinary meeting of Assembly on 23 November at 19:00 in CG93 to discuss Durham SU's position on both the NUS National Ballot and the HE bill.
