Manifesto/Andrew Hunter{West College Scotland}
The coming year is really important for a number of reasons;Brexit/Prevent/TeF{Teaching Excellence Framework}Funding Review, among others but the most important being, getting guarantees and not promisesthat are delivered-already broken, over widening access.
WIDENING ACCESS
If you are looking at widening access you absolutely must fund Colleges better {and their Students’ Associationsto ensure they are able to represent Students at NUS Scotland events/conferences/campaigns} as Colleges are the usual and nearly always only route for the poorest students to articulate into University,
The Government promised a review which produced nothing!
The result is Students still stuck on EMAs and bursaries that are still a discretionary fund and not an entitlement, and worse a draconian system of guidelines from SFC mean a student who is off one day can lose all of that weeks funding. All of this is hardly actions of a Government that has any regards to Students, who in turn are still not being offered summer support that would enhance retention.Whatever else is put in place unless funding is increased, and issues around Support needs and Mental Health issues are properly addressed? The poorest studentsin our society will never be able to close the attainment gap.
Education should be a way out of poverty , not away in to it!
West College Scotland brought a delegation of 9 to lobby MSPs with follow up meetings arranged and put a lot of effort into encouraging Students to email their MSPs in conjunction with #support us campaign by NUS Scotland. It has always been a sorrow of mine how disenfranchised young people in particular are with regard to becoming politically engaged, and we must change that.
BREXIT
On Brexit, Whether it is soft, hard, poached, boiled, easy over… Brexit, has become embroiled in bitter infighting between both sides. So let's stop this, we need to take action now! There needs to be constructive dialogue between Holyrood Westminster and Brussels on the way forward, which should include as early as possible, the right of all EU Students to be guaranteed the right to continue with their studies on the terms currently available and reciprocal agreements made for UK Students studying abroad.
PREVENT
Educational institutions are a {or at least should be} a safe place to discuss various {often opposing} points of view. The way these last two points are written, it is suggesting that anyone in an educational establishment who is a Muslim/follows Islam is naturally pre-disposed to radicalisation and should be immediately feared. This is an Islamophobic and xenophobic programme that actually creates the “them and us” narrative they are trying to avoid. We are Students, Not Suspects!, and students embrace cultural differences, which is where resources should be targeted at, instead of creating an atmosphere for divisions.
TEF. {Teaching Excellence Framework}
“The marketization of education has only been temporarily beaten. There is still a fight on our hands to beat TEF in the quarter of Scottish Universities where it was introduced”. As outlined by Rob Henthorn {VP Education},TEF is not an indicator of high quality Learning and teaching. It is a tool used to Marketwise Education that has to be stopped, before it is allowed to become the norm. The only true way to measure Quality in Learning is to get the voice of those who experience it first-hand…Students!...and the best way to develop this is through an effective class Rep System, that can advise on how to improve the quality process’s in Educational Institutions