“The Browne Review and the Comprehensive Spending Review will completely shape the future of Higher Education in this country.” These are awfully big words, and they’re true. But they’re not mine – you may recognise them from OUSU President David Barclay’s latest communication to the student body.
The events of recent days prove that Oxford students do care about the issue of fees and funding. It’s not every week that a cabinet minister is sent running for the hills by a thousand people pledging to attend an event on Facebook.
What is remarkable – indeed, shocking – is that this victory for student activism in Oxford was won with hardly any input from the organisation which we elect every year to represent us on these big issues. OUSU president David Barclay did attend the inaugural meeting of the Oxford Education Campaign two weeks ago, but why our student union never thought to arrange such a meeting themselves is beyond comprehension. He requested that all lobbying of our local representatives be left to our student union, but failed – for reasons unknown even to his sabbatical colleagues – to attend the group’s second meeting to feedback on progress made. The sabbatical officers present at this second meeting did little more than enthusiastically wave their hands every time someone mentioned the possibility of involving OUSU.
With an emergency motion to affiliate with Thursday’s protest passed in OUSU Council late on Wednesday afternoon, the stable door was finally shut – but only after the horse had long since bolted.
It wasn’t always this way: exactly one year ago, I was part of a group of JCR Presidents who worked with the then OUSU sabbatical officers to leaflet students about the launch of the Browne Review. The response was impressive: hundreds of students signed up to our mailing list and both student newspapers praised the student union for doing what it is there to do – provide cross-campus representation to all of us.
And there has been significant action around the country, all co-ordinated by student unions. There have been Town Takeovers – days of mass student action coordinated alongside the National Union of Students (NUS) – at numerous university campuses: Liverpool, Bristol, Sheffield, Manchester, Southampton, Reading, Newcastle, London, Birmingham and Cambridge. It was at Cambridge’s Town Takeover that Nick Clegg signed the pledge that committed his party to opposing raising tuition fees. That is what a real student union can accomplish.
I should be clear that I’m not suggesting that the sabbatical officers are taking no action whatsoever. I know full well that they are. But most of their efforts have taken place behind the scenes and are mainly focused on raising turnout at next month’s national demonstration. Committee meetings, training sessions and lobbying behind closed doors is all well and good, but the sabbatical officers must remember that it is public leadership that people can see which inspires and motivates. If OUSU are perceived to be outsourcing this issue to the NUS, students will naturally seek out other groups to lead them in expressing their views.
Blame for this should not entirely be laid at the door of the present sabbatical officers: last term the OUSU strategic review group identified a crippling weakness in our union’s ability to campaign due to long-standing structural problems within the institution.
But, fundamentally, this should not be an excuse for David Barclay’s team to hide behind. The events of the last week have demonstrated clearly that with some initiative, a few emails and phone calls and a Facebook group, it is possible to galvanise hundreds of students and get the media listening to what Oxford has to say. Those who protested on Thursday and packed into two meetings at Wadham should be commended for reminding Oxford of what real student campaigning can look like. The sabbatical officers should be ashamed that they had little to do with it.
At best, their actions are those of a group of people with little idea or strategy of how to respond to the biggest issue to affect higher education in decades. They suggest a complete inability to grasp the most basic concept of what a student union is and what it should do.
My message to the sabbatical officers is simple: it’s time to get off the bench and get in the game. Everybody’s waiting for you, but I don’t know for how much longer.
Jason Keen was JCR President at St John’s and was elected to OUSU as an NUS Delegate and member of the Strategic Review Group. He has also worked for OUSU as Freshers’ Fair Organiser and has since been involved with the Oxford Education Campaign. He is writing in a personal capacity.
