As an attempt to explain my view of what the role of VP Union Development is all about, both for those thinking about running and for those voting & taking an interest in the election, I am writing a series of blogs that address the five key areas set out below

• Championing Students’ Unions
• Breaking Down Barriers to Participation in Students’ Unions
• Deepening Participation in Students’ Unions
• Empowering Students to Make Change
• Finding the Voice of Millions of Students outside Students’ Unions

Further details about the elections and how to stand can be found here http://www.nusconnect.org.uk/conference/info/

This week I’m focussing on Deepening Participation in students’ unions.

In 2005, the then HE minister said;

The most challenging statistic is that if you come from the top two socio-economic groups, you've got an 80% chance of going to university. If you come from the bottom two socio-economic groups, it's only 20%. In the fourth richest economy in the world in the 21st century this is unacceptable.

Of course we would all share the sentiment that the lack of participation is totally unacceptable. However what if we applied this lens to student unions, and we asked ourselves what the picture of involvement across our movement looks like.

I think it would be fair to say that around 20% of students in Higher Education are having about 80% of the interactions with SU’s (the figure for FE is probably much more stark) the same demographic of students (and I count myself in this group) are using societies, voting in elections, getting involved in sports teams, using commercial services, sitting on union committees and ultimately becoming sabbatical officers. There are 2 sides to Widening Participation in education, 1) Outreach & 2) Retention - what if we applied the same principles to student union participation.

Outreach It works when it is targeted, coordinated and it is not just a one-off encounter. This means that universities have developed strategies which target specific low participation areas of the population in a co-ordinated and sustained way. I would argue that the same principle should be applied to students’ unions; principally we should be identifying areas of low participation and making sure that we have a strategy for engagement in a co-ordinated and sustained way. Some student unions have started to do this really effectively in recent years; however no one is close to representing the 80%.

Retention Institutional retention strategies work when they are aware of crisis points (eg xmas hols of first-years) and are working to create a welcoming and supportive culture. Again I believe we should apply the same principles to ourselves, (although instead or retention, read integration). Students’ unions should know when any why people drop off there radar, why is it that people register for sports teams and societies and never turn up to a meeting? Why do people attend one union democratic event before never being seen again?

When are the crisis points for students union engagement and what are are we doing to overcome them? Students’ unions have come miles in the last couple of years, the culture of our unions is totally different, however I still think we have work to do in this area, too many students are being put off because our culture isn’t inclusive and reflective of the wider world.

So why does this matter and what is the role of a student union?

For student unions to be genuinely inclusive places which are vehicles for social mobility, we need bridging social capital to become the norm. I would say that 90% of my interactions through my student union were bonding social capital, playing sport with people like me, drinking in the bar with people like me, attending society meetings with people like me. But that the 10% which was bridging social capital is what shaped me; when I was President I did Ramadan, in the evenings I used to breakfast with the ISOC, the incite this gave me into culture and the experience was amazing, the process of doing Ramadan was interesting enough but the discussions of what it meant were more interesting.

The beauty of bridging social capital is that it’s a two way exchange, a genuine leveller and student unions have an amazing ability to make a reality.

If we ever win on widening participation and have genuinely reflective universities then this will only be half a victory, there is no point having a load of diverse people entering an education system which alienates them, passing experiences by and not sharing social capital.

Deepening participation recognises that getting students through the door at an institution isn’t enough. We need to empower students to cross social spheres so they can shape their own lives based on where they’re going, not where they’ve been.

To find out how you can get involved in NUS’ first Deepening Participation Commission by submitting evidence and coming to an event in Parliament, please follow this link http://www.nusconnect.org.uk/news/article/uniondevelopment/Deepening-Participation-Commission-Established/

Cheers

Ed