Tuesday 20-04-2021 - 13:26

Opportunities Officer, Anna Marshall, recently attended NUS Conference as one of Durham's NUS delegates. Here Anna reflects on the experience.

The highlight of the student movement’s calendar. The percolation point for Durham student issues to be raised on a national level. Or something to do with that discount card that gets you cheap deals at PizzaExpress. Whatever it means to you, as the annual gathering of 600 student unions, NUS Conference is the place to be for any student union keeno – and I’ll now try my best to summarise exactly what went down (harder than it looks in an online world). 

A good starting point for NUS in 2021 is the current President Larissa Kennedy, who can reliably be found calling for a decommercialized education on Twitter or criticising the government’s predictable treatment of students via TikTok. Ms Kennedy opened the conference with a rallying call for more student action, celebrating all the successful wins for students over the past year – the no detriment policies, the A Level U-turn and the numerous accommodation fee reimbursements – but Larissa was sure it wasn’t over yet. The NUS President called for rent strikes, online demos, letter writing and social media campaigning until we have got rid of tuition fees and won all the aims of NUS policy – the exact nature of which was to be decided at this conference. 

NUS Sabbatical Officers have a two-year lifespan – so there were no full-time positions elected this year. Instead, there were positions on the two student supervisory committees which influence how NUS operates: National Scrutiny Council (which holds Officers accountable to meeting the promises of their manifestos) and Democratic Procedures Committee (which shapes the formulating of policy, decision-making forums and general democratic procedures). Durham SU President Seun Twins and Durham first-year student Akansha Agrawal were elected to National Scrutiny Council for 2021-22. Our campus now has a strong voice within NUS and has two direct lines to the NUS Officers. 

An online conference is an odd thing in itself. Durham SU has been conducting its own democracy review, so I understand the struggle of making a large organisation representative of all its members, but NUS has a much bigger challenge. The National Union of Students has to represent 7 million students, through 600 student unions, represented by seven nationally elected officers.  

The way this was managed virtually this year is worthy of an explanation. In January, each SU was asked to propose a motion. At Durham, the Officer team came up with broad topics which Durham students are concerned about, which we then did an informal poll on with a sample of students. This polling showed a strong preference for a Cost of Living motion, which we submitted to NUS. Middlesex SU had submitted a similar motion, which we were asked to work together on to co-propose. Our Cost of Living motion called for NUS to campaign for a more affordable student experience, with more money made available for students to access and more transparent upfront costs. Students shouldn’t have to rely on jobs to afford their education – we argued that forcing students to waste time working and therefore letting their education suffer was a poor investment from the government. If our education is getting subsidised, our living costs should be too, so we can get the most from our education. Before the conference, all NUS delegates were asked to vote for the policies they wanted to discuss, which led to six motions being upvoted – including Durham’s. 

The six topics to discuss were: 

1. Fees and Finance 
2. Mental Health 
3. Sexual Violence, Non-Disclosure Agreements and Relationship Abuse 
4. Erasmus+
5. Student Housing 
6. Cost of Living 

Students from all over the UK then discussed the motions in policy workshops, where we could question a motion presenter and friendly amendments could be made. Unlike parliament, the intention is to discuss motions enough, so that any issues can be worked out and amendments can be proposed – motions shouldn’t get to this stage if most students don’t want them to go through. Each motion was ultimately passed, with amendments. 

Between Larissa Kennedy’s speeches and motion discussions, there were opportunities to learn about current NUS campaigns – people were encouraged to sign the petitions for key issues such as students deserve better, tackling sexual harassment and decolonising the curriculum. ‘A Lizard’s Tale’, the one-man performance on antisemitism, was also screened one evening. Durham SU has recently agreed to adopt the IHRA antisemitism definition, so I'd thoroughly recommend watching more of Marlon Solomon’s videos on YouTube, which outline the issue of antisemitic conspiracy theories and explain how antizionism can be problematic. 

All in all, because there were so many different sessions to choose from, it’s been hard to describe a universal conference experience. The Durham delegates (Akansha, Aditya, Bianca, Alexandra, Seun and myself) attended a variety of workshops. For me, the most exciting thing was presenting Durham’s Cost of Living policy and getting to meet students from universities across the country who resonated with the motion. It is amazing to be in an environment of highly engaged student activists, who believe in similar experiences and values, but who push you to think harder for solutions. Having a deep-dive into the realities of a rent-strike, or how to work in unity for decolonisation, was the boost of energy I needed halfway through my sabbatical year. 

Congratulations to Akansha and Seun for being elected into national NUS roles, and thank you to all that helped us formulate our successful Cost of Living motion – we’ll hopefully see some results from this in the near future.