My blog

Tag: Lockdown

  • Does the NUS actually represent students?

    Does the NUS actually represent students?

    by Alice Wright

    The National Union of Students (NUS), founded in 1922, is a confederate organisation of over 600 individual student unions. Overall it purports to represent seven million students. The Union is no stranger to criticism and scandal. In 2018 it faced a disastrous £3 million shortfall and its policies have long been grumbled about by many students. Yet it is the policy decisions it has made during the pandemic that have caused its most vocal criticism and concerted opposition to emerge.

    The NUS’ new leader, Larissa Kennedy, has mobilised the NUS in support of the University and College Union’s (UCU) decision to demand all higher education courses move to completely online teaching. The NUS’ latest ‘Students Deserve Better’ campaign demands “a move to online teaching as default”.  

    While Kennedy purports to represent the collective voice of students, this is not the full story. Of course, there will inevitably be a difficulties when any large organisation seeks to represent a large and diverse constituency like the UK student population. However, many students have voiced concerns in the press. As a student myself, anecdotal experience suggests that students overwhelmingly want to retain as much in-person teaching as possible. 

    But whereas the UCU is an opt-in membership for individual academic employees, the NUS works in a way less likely to enfranchise its membership. Students are represented by their own institutions’ unions, who then feed into the umbrella organisation. Look closer, and even the ‘democratic’ nature of individual student unions is open to question. The NUS website claims that voting in student elections exceeds 250,000 votes annually, but out of the total 7,000,000 students, this is only 3.5%. In spite of these numbers, the NUS is considered the voice of students, consulted by university and government officials and quoted as the leading student opinion by the press. This is misleading and fermenting a disparity between the Union and those it claims to represent.  

    It is clear that periods of time, particularly during this stringent Lockdown 3, will require students to work online, the NUS and the UCU have claimed they are following the advice of SAGE in pushing for all teaching to be moved online. Many students would have preferred to keep in-person teaching, or at least the blended approach that was promised at the beginning of the academic year during the more relaxed tier systems. 

    Not only does this represent better value for money with courses exceeding £9,250 a year, it is also a mental health touchstone. There is no comparison to being taught and engaging with your contemporaries physically present. Break-out rooms on Microsoft Teams and Zoom are painfully awkward and online lectures are less engaging. 

    There are also concerns about the precedence of the NUS’ demand for “online teaching as default” sets. If seminar leaders and lecturers are able to create online powerpoints and recorded lectures once, what is to stop the same subject matter being churned out year on year, while institutions continue to charge full fees? 

    Kennedy, who said in a Guardian interview back in August “A real worry is that we cannot trust universities to put student and staff safety first, because they are too preoccupied with their position in the market. […] They’re committing to in-person teaching, which they haven’t necessarily thought through from a safety perspective because they’re in competition with other institutions.”  

    Since students have been made into consumers, it is only right that they demand the product they have been promised and that institutions do what they can to meet that marketplace demand. 

    Photo credit: Barnyz

  • Opinion: It’s time for us all to praise the unsung heroes of the pandemic – students

    Opinion: It’s time for us all to praise the unsung heroes of the pandemic – students

    by Diana Blamires

    Students have been blamed for spreading coronavirus and pilloried for having parties during lockdown but there have not been headlines trumpeting the good they’ve been doing in the pandemic.

    Medical students and student nurses from universities across the country have been helping on the frontlines and many have now volunteered to help with the mass vaccination programme.

    Academic staff are also lending a hand. Coventry University Assistant Professor Steph Coles, a paramedic who herself was ill with coronavirus last year, started working at West Midlands Ambulance Service over Christmas as soon as the academic term ended because she wanted to support her healthcare students who had taken on roles helping the NHS.

    In Northern Ireland, medical students and nurses were fast-tracked into roles helping out with the pandemic as soon as their university courses finished. Our healthcare students are among the unsung heroes of this pandemic working long hours to play their part in saving lives.

    This is a far cry from the proliferation of headlines blaming students for spreading coronavirus and censuring those who have been arrested for holding parties. As always, the few spoil it for the many. The vast majority of students are following very strict guidelines. International students who are stranded on campus are strolling or running on their own or with one other student. Shopping trips for food are predominantly alone. The overwhelming majority of students are loyal to the communities in which they live and want to play their part by not spreading the virus.

    Contrary to headlines about isolated students with no university support, some universities have gone to great lengths to focus on the welfare of students during the pandemic. The University of Buckingham is even enabling students to take therapy dogs out for their daily exercise. A student is allowed to go for a walk with one member of the welfare team and the dogs. In normal times the university’s two black therapy cockapoos, Millie and Darcie, are available to help homesick freshers who are missing their pets, and relieve anxiety for stressed students. Walking and cuddling them calms students at exam time. Research indicates a few minutes spent petting animals, especially black dogs, helps to reduce the stress-inducing hormone cortosol.

    Furthermore, most universities are offering virtual sessions simply for students to chat and air concerns. A number of smaller ones are arranging for students to be phoned regularly. Counselling sessions are available online.

    There are the many students who have helped with Oxford University’s world-leading vaccine programme and other such research projects who have quietly played their part while the university grabs the limelight.

    Although headlines are shrieking about students paying rent while living at home a significant number of universities managed to offer face to face sessions on campus right up until the end of last term when the government announced lectures must be online only. Many universities managed one to one or very small group meetings in person. Students at universities with face-to-face and good online provision are not asking for their money back for tuition fees as they feel their university did the best it could in the circumstances.

    The estate departments of universities went to enormous lengths to ensure in-person meetings were in safe environments and cleaners were deployed to guard against the spread of coronavirus as a result of those sessions.

    Student unions also pulled out all the stops to come up with imaginative ways of enabling groups of six to meet outdoors including barbecues and outdoor workouts as well as picnics and organised walks.

    Whilst inevitably in some student cities the virus thrived when students first arrived, in the autumn many stopped the spread in their local communities thanks to huge efforts by staff and students. It is vital that we appreciate our students for the positive and vital role they are playing in this pandemic rather than simply berating them as superspreaders when the vast majority have played by the rules and had a very challenging year at university as a result.

    Photo credit: Micurs

  • ‘My absolute worst nightmare’: students react to Lockdown 3

    ‘My absolute worst nightmare’: students react to Lockdown 3

    Georgia Heneage

    Boris Johnson’s recent announcement that we are again heading into a national lockdown will have far-reaching consequences for the economy, for jobs and, of course, for education.

    There has been much talk about the fate of school students and upcoming exams; headteachers have made unprecedented challenges to Johnson’s initial decision to keep schools open and parents have rallied against the government’s handling of school closures.

    But what of the millions of students in higher education?

    The pandemic is already influencing the choices students are making with regards to university in surprising ways: a recent Guardian article highlighted a greater push towards vocational courses like teaching or nursing, and many students are choosing universities closer to home. More generally, there’s been a widespread impetus to apply to university, especially among students in more deprived areas of the country; UCAS expects a 5% jump in applications this year.

    While the long-term effects of the pandemic such as these may be positive, what of the current fee-paying students being forced to stay at home and work remotely? Some universities, like University College London, have advised their students to stay at home past the official government deadline of mid-February. Others have given little to no information on when students can expect to return to normality.

    Hugo Rowse, a first year undergraduate at Exeter, says they’ve had hardly any communication from the university at all.

    “We had one email before the announcements saying it is ‘recommended’ we don’t come back until the 25th of January. I think they’ve used the word recommended to avoid having to pay us back”, says Rowse, who has spent an average 8 weeks on campus and “cannot believe” that they haven’t been told anything about remunerations since the November lockdown.

    “I’m still waiting for some form of contact since the lockdown yesterday”, says Rowse. “Honestly, I don’t know if we’ll ever get any.”

    Rowse says that the situation is even worse for those who have returned to Exeter. “The thing which has caused the most anger is that people who have gone back have sent pictures of locks on our doors and balconies to stop us escaping, which is bizarre. A lot of students have emailed and got no response”.

    “The prospect of going back to university now and being locked in is my absolute worst nightmare,” says Rowse. “I feel so aloof from my course. I just sit here and they send me 16 lectures a week and I just have to watch them.”

    According to Sam Gamblin, charity manager at UMHAN (University Mental Health Advisors Network), there is a big mental-health impact on university students during a national lockdown. “A key issue is the lack of the usual support networks and activities that students might do to keep their mental health at bay,” says Gamblin.

    “Although you can still access things like psychiatric appointments and medication, a lot of students had strategies of keeping well and ‘fitting in’ through community groups and societies, and that’s now completely disappeared.”

    Gamblin says isolation is the key concern among mental health experts, particularly with new students living in new accommodation with people they don’t know, for those living in hostile home environments or with parents unaware of their mental-health issues.

    As Exeter student Hugo Rowse demonstrated, Gamblin says they have concerns about whether students will even want to return to university. “What happens if students want to defer or do something different, or decide that university isn’t for them? This has an impact on their employability further down the line, and there isn’t any advice on what to do if this is the case.”