In recent years, students have seen the National Union of Students’ marred by a string of negative headlines, from antisemitism to
controversial boycotts; however, this year, the NUS successfully voted for what
has been described as ‘the largest democratic overhaul since 1922’ – its creation.
So, why and how does this affect students?
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| The annual NUS National Conference (Image from the NUS) |
The NUS was founded to represent and work for students at
the national level. At times, it has incurred some criticism for its public
stances on geo-political affairs, which some see as a distraction to the NUS’
student focus.
Structural reform has been seen as a way of improving the
operations and image of the NUS – in order to ably respond to (and stand up
for) student needs and concerns.
At this year’s NUS 2017 National Conference, The Student
Newspaper reported that delegates elected a ‘centre-left moderate’ President,
and passed ‘the most comprehensive and wide ranging structural reforms in NUS history’. These reforms, Motion 601a consisted of a 19-point plan; to bring
decision making closer to students, improve debate procedures, increase student
engagement, transparency and accountability.
Fundamentally, decision making (including debating ideas, and
agreeing local actions) will be devolved to local organising networks for each
region/nation. Furthermore, the National Society of Apprentices will be brought
into the membership of NUS – a very progressive move.
To improve debate procedures, the reforms provide a
pre-conference ballot for consensual policy proposals with over two-thirds
support to be passed without debate, which will allow a greater number of controversial
policies to be debated at Conference. Each year, there is not enough time to
debate all the proposed motions.
Regarding student engagement, the proposals encourage more
online voting for students, instead of via delegates. One important change,
includes an all-student ballot for students to prioritise policies passed at
Conferences, for elected Officers to address accordingly.
On the front of transparency and
accountability, all Student Unions’ delegates’ voting records will be made
public, akin to the current UK Parliament. Other changes, include introducing an
online process for Student Unions to trigger a vote of no-confidence at NUS
full-time officers, as well as a new monthly question-and-answer session between
members and NUS officers.
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| The British Parliament - an example of accountable and transparent democracy (image from Martin Plaut) |
Although the motion was passed,
Socialist Students opposed the motion as ‘an attempt by the right-wing of NUS to roll back the more left-wing direction it has taken in recent years’.
Similarly, the Marxist Student Federation commented that ‘this represented an incredibly coordinated campaign on the behalf of the right to dramatically impinge upon the politicisation and leftward shift that has been taking place in the NUS’.
Conversely, NUS Delegate and YUSU
Officer, Alex Lusty, told The Nouse that the reforms introduced a ‘hybrid system of electoral college and direct democracy’ necessary for the NUS to ‘win back credibility [and] enfranchise students’.
Subsequent to the Conference, the
reaction among our Warwick Delegates/Sabbatical Officers were mixed, find out more in the written Delegate reports (not all delegate reports are available, as some gave spoken reports to Council) – key points featured in our next article, coming soon!
By Warwick Eye
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