Rosie Makes a Post: TEFinitely working hard & #CutTheCosts

…. The title pun makes me laugh, even if no one else gets it…

So hey Edgehillians! (and anyone else on the internet that has found themselves here,) Vice President Academic Representation checking in with all of the stuff that has been keeping me busy for the past few weeks. It’s incredible exciting, like a HEFCE Quality Assessment Consultation, responding to an NUS briefing on the TEF, and being utterly confused by NUS’s National Executive Council’s meeting, which, if you don’t know, was live-streamed for the first time ever last week. And being the total policy geek I am, I tuned in with popcorn and played NEC bingo. (I believe I was the first to get a row, so go me!)

So yes, the TEF, or Teaching Excellence Framework, is something the government is proposing to bring in within the next 3-or-so years. In a nutshell, it’s to ensure the standard of teaching in higher education is, well, excellent.

The problems with it however, are numerous. I could go on about it, (and if you’re interested in my take, drop me an email at suvpacademicrep@edgehill.ac.uk and we’ll have a nice long chat,) but the chief issue with the TEF is the proposal that it will be linked to a rise in tuition fees.

YES. YOU READ THAT RIGHT. In institutions where teaching is deemed to be excellent, the government wants to remove the 9K cap.

And we all know, higher fees = awful.

I mean, the government are already trying to take away maintenance grants and replace these with further loans, now they want to let institutions raise tuition fees?

Yeah. I am an unhappy Vice President.

Although, on the grants front, you may or may not be aware that your Students’ Union is meeting with three local MPs on Friday to discuss the #CutTheCosts campaign! We will be asking them to support an early day motion in parliament, (which is basically a petition that MPs can sign to get something discussed.) At current the replacement of grants with loans won’t be discussed in parliament, so our first point of call is to change that. Then we are going to ask them to vote against the proposal. Simple.

So you can keep up with what we’re doing on the day by following the Union’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, or my personal twitter, where I’ll be live-tweeting what’s going on!

And everything’s about to get even busier for us here in the Students’ Union, as freshers week is fast approaching!

… yeah.

I’ll write another blog on that madness after the fact, so if I don’t see you during freshers, I’ll see you right back here afterwards.

Bye for now!