UK students

Student activism in the UK and the NUS. See also UCU.

Report on NUS LGBT Conference

Nearly 300 lesbian, gay and bisexual students descended on Leeds for the largest Conference in the history of NUS LGB Campaign for this year's Summer Conference. The Conference was held 35 years to the day since the Stonewall riots in New York and Workers' Liberty supporters held a fringe meeting 'Stonewall Was a Riot' commemorating that event. The meeting also looked at the development of the LGBT liberation movement, with discussion on 'Lesbians and Gays Support The Miners' as this year is also the 20th anniversary of the miners' strike. Around 50 people packed the meeting room and joined...

A student conference... to attack democracy

By Alan Clarke, National Union of Students Executive, personal capacity On 17 June, an emergency National Union of Students conference will meet to discuss structural reforms to plug the union's £500,000 a year financial deficit. The National Executive Committee has succeeded in getting the 25 student unions it needs to call such a conference - a few, no doubt, motivated by a genuine desire to debate NUS's future, but the majority of them right-wing unions eager for the opportunity to cut back on democracy. Indeed, given the timing of the conference, it could hardly be otherwise. By 17 June...

National Union of Students leaders attack democracy

On June 17th, a very small NUS extraordinary conference met in Leeds and endorsed the National Executive Committee's proposals for cuts in the union's democratic structures. The background: it was announced earlier this year that NUS is facing an annual financial shortfall of £500,000. This has provided an excuse for the right-wing of the union, including the Labour Students/independent Blairite majority on the National Executive Committee, to once again take up their favourite theme of "democratic reform", ie attacks on NUS's democratic structures. By the start of June, they had succeeded in...

National Union of Students financial crisis: Right-wing says "Cut democracy, de

By Alan Clarke , NUS National Executive (personal capacity) One of the issues that would have dominated this year's National Union of Students conference (held in April) - before the conference was cut short so that students could protest outside Westminster during the third vote on the Higher Education Bill - was the long running issue of reform of NUS. This is a lot more interesting than it sounds! Shortly before the conference, the national union's Directorate of full-time officials announced that NUS was suffering from a huge budget deficit - it annually spends half a million pounds more...

East London students occupy

By Coral Harding , University of East London Student Union women's officer and Campaign for Free Education Almost 100 students occupied the UEL Vice-Chancellor's offices on 29 April in protest at plans to make cuts in the university's graphic fine arts department. Proposals to cut teaching hours directly have been beaten back by a joint campaign of the student union and the lecturer's union, but the administration still proposes to make major reductions in teaching provision by merging a number of different single honours courses. After a core of activists met in the University square, marched...

After the NUS elections, after the Higher Education Bill

The way forward for the student movement Activists' forum called by the Campaign for Free Education 12-6pm Saturday 15th May Westminster University Regent Street campus Sessions include: Developing a manifesto for education * The way forward for the fight against fees * Students and internationalism * Building links with education trade unions Speakers invited include Kat Fletcher (CFE co-chair & NUS President elect), John McDonnell MP, People & Planet, NATFHE. For more information e-mail info@free-education.org or ring 07976 000 940

Radical left wins student presidency for the first time ever

Now build a fighting union! By Alan Clarke (NUS National Executive) and Michael Wood It's not unusual for speakers at the National Union of Students conference to tell delegates that they are attending a "historic" event - but it is more than a cliché to say that this year's conference (which took place on 29-30 March) could prove to be a major turning point. Last year, Campaign for Free Education (CFE) candidate Kat Fletcher came within three votes of removing Labour Students incumbent Mandy Telford in the election for NUS President. This year, Kat defeated the Labour candidate, Rami Okasha...

Left candidate wins NUS presidency

Campaign for Free Education candidate Kat Fletcher has won the presidential election in the National Union of Students. She won by two votes, and a recount is going on now.

Student unions need new leadership

By Alan Clarke and Sally Murdock Although nothing was confirmed when Solidarity went to press, it looks likely that the Third Reading of the Higher Education Bill will take place on 31 March - the last day before the parliamentary Easter break, and also the third day of this year's Conference of the National Union of Students. The Higher Education Bill introduces "top-up fees" for university education in place of the current flat-rate fee. The Labour Students-"independent" leadership of NUS is extremely nervous about the possibility of an anti-Blairite backlash at the student conference. It...

Stop this closure!

By Uduak Udofa, Westminster Kingsway Student Union Executive The Battersea site of Westminster Kingsway College in south London has just been threatened with closure. The college wants to sell the Battersea Park Road building and is also considering totally withdrawing from the area as a provider. Money from the sale of the building, which has housed educational facilities for over 100 years and is part of the college where TV chef Jamie Oliver learned his trade, would be used to help resolve financial problems elsewhere in the organisation. Closure could result in many teaching and admin job...

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