Login

  • SU Directory
  • Interact
  • Trading
  • NUS Extra

News

Trevor Phillips: NUS 90th anniversary interviews

How do you think that challenges have changed for students and for the NUS in the three decades since you were the president?

Starting with students, let me be honest and say that it is not something I follow that closely. A lot of my experience is partly through what I do here at the commission and to some extent through my own family.

I think that life changed in probably three ways. One, I think, and this is something everybody says, being a student is not quite the happy-go-lucky experience I think it was in the 1960s or even in the early 1970s.

I think that students today are very much more conscious of the purpose of it, preparing for the labour market, competing for jobs and so on and so forth. I think that was always part of it but in the days when I was a student there was pretty much certainty that if you had a degree you would get something to do. I don't think students today have that certainty.

Secondly, I think that the actual cost of being a student is of a different kind. I know it is perhaps not a hugely popular thing to say in student circles but I don't myself think the big problem so much is tuition fees. I think the problem is living costs.

The cost of accommodation, the cost of actually being a student is much, much higher - accommodation is much less subsidised. So I think getting through the three or four years itself is pretty tough.

On the upside, the thing I think has changed for students is, or my impression is, that actually students are much more sophisticated, much worldlier. I think we were a pretty naïve crew but if I talk to students now they know a lot more about the world, they are much more savvy, they are much more clued up and that I think is a good thing.

In so far as NUS is concerned, I think being the president of the National Union of Students is a much more difficult job. It is a business and that is quite tough. No doubts there are people; a general manager, chief executive and so on, and staff who have always been great at NUS handling things.

But there are some decisions only the president can make and you are making those decisions in your early or your mid 20s. They are big calls of a kind most people never have to make at any time in their life.

Even those who do have to make those kinds of big decisions are only senior enough to have to make them in their 40s. So I think that is a very, very tough situation for the presidents of the NUS.

For the national union itself, holding its end up and having a voice in the national conversation again is more difficult because there are more voices - there are more lobbyists and politics is more complicated. But you guys seem to have done pretty well.

I have the privilege of having met not the current president of NUS but pretty much all of the presidents since I left and without flattering people too much I just think NUS presidents, generally speaking, have got better over time. They are just smarter, weightier, top class. The one I knew best most recently, Wes Streeting is an absolutely outstanding guy.

 

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Comments

Please login to comment.

No comments have been made.
 
Some features of this site - including article viewing - require javascript enabled.
You must be logged in to view this article - Login now

Share

Latest in campaigns

Getting to know Harriet Sjerps-Jones

Ahead of her lecture at the Student Eats Open Day 2013, we asked Harriet Sjerps-Jones about campuses as 'living laboratories'.

 
Student movement comments on report on review of teacher training

Following today’s update from Minister Stephen Farry in the Assembly on the review of teacher education infrastructure in Northern Ireland, NUS-USI student movement President Adrianne Peltz said: “The student movement will be examining this report in detail and we will be discussing it with our member institutions.

 
Adult Learners' Week 2013

Every day this week we will upload a special edition of Toni Notes. These will cover different aspects of adult learning, in celebration of Adult Learners' Week 2013.

 
Student movement condemns removal of January A-Level resit

Following the announcement by Education Minister John O’Dowd on A-Level changes, NUS-USI student movement President Adrianne Peltz said the announcement must ensure clarity for students and must maintain the integrity and transferability of qualifications. She said however that removing the January resit option for new A-Level students, and the potential change to the AS/A2 weightings were both very retrograde steps.

 
Announcement on jobs for recently qualified teachers welcomed

President of NUS-USI student movement Adrianne Peltz has welcomed the creation of 230 new jobs for recently qualified teachers, who will now be recruited on two year fixed-term contracts to help provide tuition to children on literacy and numeracy.

 
4-Day Education and Representation Course confirmed

We are really excited to announce that this year’s Education and Representation course will be extended to a fourth day due to a subsidy from HEFCE. This support enables us to develop the content of this course even further, framed around our mutual agenda around partnership, student engagement and quality

 
 

Latest news

Last Week Next Week

Welcome to your weekly round-up of who we have been meeting and what we have been saying on your behalf to promote, defend and extend the rights of students

 
Improving access for disabled learners

Government cuts and proposed changes to the law are making it more difficult for disabled learners to access mainstream education. We take an in-depth look at the changes.

 
Aaron Kiely re-elected as Black Students’ Officer
Aaron Kiely reelected

Delegates choose incumbent to serve a second term

 
Happy cows, happy farmers, happy planet

By ensuring the good ethics of their supply chain through initiatives like Caring Dairy, Ben & Jerry’s strike a close parallel between their own practices and those of NUS. Through our support of the Happy Cows campaign, also championed by the company, NUS and two activist students were invited to the Netherlands to see first-hand how Ben & Jerry’s are world leaders of making their own supply chain ethical, by visiting a Caring Dairy farm.

 
Officer Development Programme – “The most valuable training I've been on”

NUS training can help you fulfil your potential within the student movement – and beyond. One of our previous attendees reflects on how the training has proven to be a great benefit.

 
Loughborough goes tribal

Loughborough Students’ Union has carried out research to identify tribes of students so that we can understand them better, communicate with them more effectively and make sure we represent their diverse interests.

 
 

Most Read

Trending/Most Shared articles

 

Recent Comments