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President: Education April Update

Tuesday 14-05-2024 - 16:05

President: Education April Update

By President: Education - Dola Dada

Hi everyone,

Welcome to my latest blog about what I’ve been working on throughout April. I’m pleased to share positive progress from my ongoing campaigns and updates from this month’s other activities below, so please have a read!

President: Education Dola Dada

President: Education Dola Dada

Campaign Updates

Fit to Sit – Your SU’s proposal to revise the Fit to Sit policy was presented to the University’s Senior Management in March. As I've mentioned before, this policy currently states that any student who submits an assessment or sits an exam has declared themselves ‘fit to sit’ and cannot subsequently claim for any special circumstances to have affected their results. My goal is to ensure that students can apply for extenuating circumstances within a reasonable time after submitting assessments. Following the presentation of Your SU's proposal, conversations are ongoing with academics and the Academic Registry to gain more insight and perspectives, and consider the recommended revisions to the policy.

Essay Mills - Research into the activities of essay mill vendors on social media sites has been completed. The report is now being prepared to present our findings and recommendations; this will be shared in due course with University management and students.

Inductions - Discussions are still ongoing with Student Journey to find out how this can be carried out to make it more fit for purpose.

NUS Liberation Conference

The NUS Liberation conference took place on the 15th and 16th April in Blackpool. I joined hundreds of other representatives from students’ unions across the UK, representing different student liberation groups; women, black, disabled, LGBT+ and trans communities.

Together, we created policies and priorities that will be used in the effort to improve assistance for ALL students. For a positive educational experience and successful results, every student should have equal access to opportunities and assistance. Delegates voted on the numerous policies proposed to determine which the NUS would be pushing forward to parliament for our campaign activities as a national body. The policies that were passed are the De-colonisation campaign, International Students and True Trans Liberation: Combatting governmental transphobia, banning conversion therapy and trans student athlete equity. These campaigns will be carried out throughout the next term.

It was also great to meet the new NUS leadership for the coming year and these are the new President, Vice President Higher Education and Liberation Officer for NUS.

AIP Surveys

The University is currently carrying out an Assessment Innovation Programme to have a review of assessments across all programmes – on-campus, online and overseas to make assessments more fit for purpose. The goal is to make assessments better suited to help student learning and assist in preparing for future employment.

One of the projects within this programme is ‘Student Views’, where the student perspectives and opinions are captured. Surveys have been going on this month to gather student views and this includes quantitative and qualitative surveys. The results from this will be collated and fed back to the AIP to inform decision making around the review of the university assessment policy.

Student Representation and Advocacy

This is a continuous activity as I sit on the various committees and panels I belong to, bringing the student view and ensuring students are at the heart of decisions made. I would also like to reiterate the importance of bringing feedback to Your SU; feedback and updates about your programme, halls of residence, buildings and anything affecting your student experience is very important as this helps us to get the right information to pass on to the University. I look forward to hearing from you about how your university experience is going.

As we enter/continue exam and assessment season for many of you, I'd like to wish you all the best, whatever you've got coming up. Give it your best and try to make some time for yourself to unwind in between. Remember, our Advice team is here to support you with a range of academic issues if you need their help.

Until next month!

Categories:

Campaigns, Featured, Officers

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