Tuesday 12-04-2022 - 11:00

Jack Ballingham reports on the National Union of Students National Conference 2022. 

Conference Report

The National Union of Students is the national representative body for students in the UK, including both higher and further education students. Students are members of the NUS via their students’ union, which may choose to affiliate to the NUS or not. The NUS’ annual conference is held to decide the Union’s position on policy, and to carry out elections. Each students’ union that is affiliated to the NUS is entitled to send a number of voting delegates to conference. Durham’s entitlement this year was five delegates (Aditya Lathar, Declan Merrington, Aishwarya Srinivasan, Zainab Amin, and Aalaina Khan), plus Seun, the SU President, who acted as lead delegate. Each students’ union can also submit a motion to be discussed at conference; Durham submitted a motion opposing the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, but this did not pass the priorities ballot, held before conference to select the motions to be discussed.

Day 1

Conference was opened on the first day by Matt Crilly, President of NUS Scotland, and Hillary Gyebi-Ababio, NUS’ Vice President for Higher Education. This was followed by a performance of spoken word poetry by Christy Ku, before conference was formally opened by Larissa Kennedy, President of the NUS.

The main item of business for the day was the election of new officers. Delegates were able to vote for the position of President, and for Vice President Higher Education or Further Education, depending on which institution they represented. The candidates for all three roles spoke from the conference platform, before voting online closed later in the day. The candidates successfully elected were:

· President: Shaima Dallali (City, University of London SU)

· Vice President Higher Education: Chloe Field (Liverpool Guild)

· Vice President Further Education: Bernie Savage (City of Glasgow College Students’ Association)

Before conference ended for the day, a plenary session on the history of liberation struggles in the NUS was held, chaired by Larissa Kennedy and Hillary Gyebi-Ababio, with guests Asad Rehman from War on Want, Zarah Sultana MP, and author Amelia Horgan.

 

Day 2

The second day of conference was allotted mainly to discussion of policy. Under the NUS’ new structures, the policy motions submitted by unions were discussed among groups of delegates. Rather than being debated on conference floor as previously, the motions were discussed in these groups, whose feedback would be used to alter the motions before they were voted on by delegates afterwards. The motions that were discussed were:

· The international student experience during and post-study

· Student housing co-operatives

· Making university accessible to students of all backgrounds

· New Vision for Education: abolishing a broken system, reimagining post- market transformative education and a strong student movement

· Fight for funds

· Tackling gender-based violence

Following these policy sessions were fringe events organised by the Union of Jewish Students and the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, both of which were attended by some of the Durham delegation.

The afternoon of the second day was taken up by “action workshops” which were attended by Durham’s delegates. These workshops focused on different aspects of campaigning, and on making changes to the education system.

Towards the end of the day, groups of delegates from each of the earlier policy sessions fed back to the whole conference, describing the discussions they’d had and their thoughts on the policies. Some delegates also took this opportunity to give their views on the NUS’ new policy-making process. The overwhelming feeling in the room was one that was critical of the process, and many delegates expressed they felt the new process to have been “undemocratic”.

Before conference was officially closed by the President, delegates were addressed by Clare Austick, the President of the Union of Students in Ireland, who brought fraternal greetings from her union and updated conference on the parallel struggle being waged against marketised education in Ireland.

Throughout conference, myself and Durham delegates also handed out leaflets to promote Durham SU’s campaign against the government’s Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill. These were very well received and we heard lots of positive feedback from delegates from other institutions.