Thursday 01-10-2026 - 10:50

Shaping the next decade of Post-16 education and the student movement -  2 & 3 December, Teesside Students' Union 

If we were designing the student movement for 2036 rather than inheriting the structures of today, what might we build?  

Strategy Exchange 2026 delegates will leave with a renewed sense that the future of the student movement is something NUS and students’ unions can actively shape together. We will be creating space for members to think ambitiously about the movement we will need, while helping inform the choices NUS makes about its own future purpose, priorities and relationship with students’ unions. 

The UK Post-16 education sector is entering a period of significant change. Financial pressures, demographic shifts, artificial intelligence, new models of learning, changing student expectations, greater movement between education and employment, and increasingly blurred boundaries between universities, colleges, apprenticeships and lifelong learning are already reshaping the landscape. 

At the same time, NUS is entering a period of turnaround and renewal. That creates an important opportunity not simply to respond to the challenges of today, but to ask what kind of national student movement will be needed a decade ahead. 

This conference will therefore focus on a deliberately bigger question - what could Post-16 education in the UK look like in ten years’ time and what would students need from their students’ unions and from a national student movement in that future? 

The aim is not to predict a single future or to design a new organisational model over the course of the conference. It is to create the space for the sector to look beyond immediate pressures, challenge existing assumptions and identify the innovations we need to start exploring now. 

The future of Post-16 education 

How might the way people learn, work and move through education change? What happens if the traditional three-year residential degree becomes only one of many routes through Post-16 education? How might AI, modular learning, apprenticeships, lifelong learning and new funding models change the experience of being a student? 

The future of students’ unions 

If students themselves become more diverse in age, mode of study, location and relationship with their institution, what will they need from collective representation? Which parts of the traditional students’ union model remain essential, and which might need to evolve?  

How will students make change in the future? Will traditional democratic structures remain sufficient? How will digital organising, communities of interest, place-based activism and issue-based movements interact with students' unions? What forms of participation will students expect? How do we ensure students retain collective influence in increasingly complex education systems? 

The future role of NUS UK 

The current NUS UK turnaround provides an opportunity to consider these questions nationally as well as locally. What distinctive role should a national union play in a changing Post-16 system? Where can NUS UK create value that individual students’ unions cannot create alone? How should it connect, convene, campaign, influence, build capacity and help the movement respond to change? And what relationship between NUS UK and its members will be needed for both to thrive? 

Session Proposals - realistic futures and radical possibilities 

We are looking for volunteers to host sessions (or give us ideas of sessions you'd like to take part in) that will bring innovation into the sector or provoke, inspire and challenge. We are looking for sessions led by NUS members and sector experts to help us visualise this future and what our collective responses should be. Submissions are open until 29 October.  

Registration for the event is not yet open - watch this space!