Baroness Delyth Morgan - Association of Managers in Students' Unions Conference
Coventry - 26 February 2008

I’ve been asked by the conference organisers to speak about higher education and the future of student unions in representing a changing student population.

But I want to go a little beyond that brief.

That’s because I don’t think that the work of student unions is only, or even most importantly, of significance to our university system. I think its influence goes much wider than that.

I think its main importance is as a positive influence on the future of our country.

Now, it’s undeniable that student unions and NUS as a whole have had a few pretty strange policies over the years.

But I prefer to remember the progressive environmental policies that many student unions in this country adopted before any Government in the world outside Scandinavia had even thought of doing so.

And I can’t help thinking also of the stand on apartheid that the National Union of Students took years before the Government and the business sector in this country grasped that particular nettle.

Although it sometimes amuses – and sometimes enrages - people of a different generation, student politics isn’t a joke. All politics is serious politics. And getting involved in their student union or in student politics more widely is a serious route to learning and personal growth for those who make that commitment – I am a testament to that.

That’s demonstrated by the wealth of talent that the student union movement has helped to bring to prominence.

Jack Straw was President of NUS from 1969-71. He’s held every top job in the Government of this country except for Prime Minister.

Phil Woolas, President of NUS during my own student days, 1984 – 1986 – now that’s giving away my age – is now Minister for Climate Change at DEFRA.

And I have to make a small confession myself, and own up to being a former President of the University of London Union.

All of the people I’ve mentioned and hundreds more who have made important contributions to national life since the NUS was founded in 1922, cut their political teeth in the organisation. For so many of them, as it was for me, involvement with NUS was the formative experience that set them on the road towards public office.

So what is the student union movement actually for? And what role can it play in the future?

Well, the simple answer to the question of what student unions do is – they represents the views of about two million people. But of course we all know that that task is not as simple as it sounds, and that it’s going to become increasingly complex in the future.

So I want to spend some time now exploring some of the challenges facing Government and HE institutions, and their implications not only for today’s students but for students and student unions in years to come.

The Leitch review is a good starting point. This review examined the skills the population will need in order to compete in a global economy. As some of you will know, the findings of the Leitch review have set the sector the ambitious aim of raising to at least 40 per cent the proportion of the working-age population who hold a higher education qualification. In 2005, the figure was just 29 per cent.

Meeting this challenge involves reaching out to groups who have traditionally been under-represented at university.
Higher education must be open to all people, irrespective of their economic, ethnic or religious background, and each student should be given maximum opportunity to thrive and achieve their full potential in higher education.
At the moment, 43% of young people in higher economic groups get a higher education. This compares to just under 20% of those in lower groups.
So Government is supporting initiatives like Aimhigher, which gives partnerships of schools, colleges and higher education institutions the opportunity to collaborate on the design and delivery of a wide range of attainment aspiration-raising activities.

In 2006, analysis of the impact of ethnicity on degree attainment showed unexplained differences between ethnic groups, so we immediately commissioned the Higher education Academy and the Equality Challenge Unit to explore the reasons and to survey current practice in the sector. The review has now reported and includes clear recommendations for individual HEIs to take action to monitor their performance and, where necessary, to review their procedures and practices accordingly.
We’re also working to combat discrimination and encourage ethnic and religious diversity in higher education. Together with UUK and what was then SCOP, now GuildHE, the Equality Challenge Unit published guidance in 2005 to all higher education institutions called ‘Promoting Good Campus Relations: dealing with hate crime and intolerance’. An update to this guidance was published in September 2007. Higher education institutions are actively using the guidance to encourage tolerance on campus.
But the students of the future won’t just be from a wider variety of different backgrounds than ever before – they’ll also be learning in different ways. We mustn’t forget that 70% of the working population in 2020 has already left school. So, if we’re going to succeed in reaching that target of 40% with a higher education qualification, we’re not just talking about widening participation amongst school-leavers. More students will be part-timers – balancing study with career and family commitments. More will be off-campus, studying on-line, or in the workplace.
Government and Higher Education Funding Council for England are placing increasing emphasis on higher education for people in the workplace. So for example, on 21 February, HEFCE announced that they will provide at least £105 million over the next three years to support the development of employer engagement courses. These will help universities and colleges change their work with employers, including paying for new infrastructure including ICT, or training staff.

This is in addition to the continued expansion of Foundation Degrees, which give people the intermediate technical and professional skills that are in demand from employers, and to provide more flexible and accessible ways of studying.

So, we’re on course for a student population that looks very different to today’s. And our success in meeting the challenge of broadening access to higher education creates a knock-on challenge: when it comes to hearing the voices and responding to the needs of this future student population, government and student unions share a huge task.

So how are we going to meet it?

Well, one thing is to make sure that we – student representatives and government - listen.

It’s something that government is often criticised for doing too little of. But I think it’s fair to say that things are changing.

Last autumn, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills launched the Student Listening Programme, designed to amplify the student voice in Government. This programme has seen all the Ministers from the Department travelling around the country and talking students about their concerns and aspirations. We’ve also been holding Student Juries – groups of students around the country who have come together to hear evidence from expert witnesses from across the sector and to debate what they feel are the most important issues affecting the student experience today. And as part of the Programme, my predecessor, Lord Triesman became the first Minister for Students, with an explicit responsibility for listening to students and speaking up for their views in Government. It’s a mantle I’m delighted to take on.

The Listening Programme allows us to hear the diversity of individual students’ view on a very wide range of issues. Some of them may be political, but in many cases what concerns students most are the small, practical things that affect their everyday lives.

Of course, Government has not been entirely deaf to students’ views on such matters in the past. And the NUS remains an effective advocate for students on big issues.

But what about the day-to-day concerns that are really crucial in determining how good or otherwise a person’s experience of higher education is?

Given that the quality of each student’s higher education experience is the main thing that the whole edifice is for, that’s something we should be really concerned about.

And that’s why the creation of a new National Student Forum is at the centre of the listening programme, and why student organisations such as the NUS have given us so much support in setting it up.

The National Student Forum, which will meet for the first time this Thursday 28th February, will exist to make sure that the Government does hear all shades of student opinion – those of undergraduates and postgraduates; full-timers, part-timers and distance-learners; home and overseas; men and women; school-leavers and mature adults; the able-bodied and the disabled. We also want to hear about the full range of issues that affect students, from choosing a course to getting a job at the end of it.

Student representation and advocacy bodies across the country were involved in helping to shape this new body. They include, besides the NUS, the National Postgraduate Committee, the Mature Students’ Union, SKILL, the British Council and the Open University Students’ Association, together with a range of stakeholders representing other parts of the higher education community.

My Ministerial colleagues and I have made a public commitment to listen and respond to what the Forum has to tell us. Personally, I think this has at least the potential to grow into one of the most radical developments in higher education policy-making for many years. And I think that the NUS and the other student groups, as much as Ministers are looking forward to hearing the Forum’s views.

And while I’m talking about the Forum, it’s worth mentioning that just a couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of naming Maeve Sherlock, another former President of the NUS, as Chair of the new National Student Forum. That will be a powerful voice at the heart of government in favour of students and the need continually to improve the quality of their experience of higher education.

Another important measure, initiated by the NUS, is already well underway. DIUS was very pleased earlier this year to support the expansion of the NUS’s Student Union Evaluation Initiative. As many of you will know, this is helping unions to develop their organisation and management so that they can fulfil their vital role in ensuring students’ social, cultural and academic well-being. Partnership is a crucial element of the initiative, with unions serving very different student bodies grouped into cohorts, in order to encourage the sharing of best practice.

But there are also two more aspects of student union activity that I want to draw your attention to. They are things that unions have always done effectively, and I think it’s crucial that they continue to be done in the future.

The first is simply talking. I want to assure that when NUS talks, my Ministerial colleagues and I do listen. That’s because, on the big issues, there’s no doubt that the views of the NUS tend to be a fair barometer of the balance of opinion among students themselves.

That was certainly true of the policy on variable tuition fees. And I think it’s probably also true of the no-platform policy for speakers who hold extreme views. As it happens, I think NUS is wrong on both issues. But that doesn’t mean that I or my colleagues take no account of what it has to say about them.

And a second thing which I think unions must continue to do is to continue to be active in making a difference to student life, and indeed to the life of the whole country.

In any democracy, the more activism we have, the better.

What chance has any society got if no one cares about it, if no one believes and is willing to make the effort to translate belief into action?

Almost no one would contest the proposition that life should offer an equal opportunity to everyone, irrespective of what job their parents did or where they came from.

So what possible reason could anyone have not to struggle to bring equality about? And surely no one would disagree that there should be solidarity in this country between people of every race, creed or colour. But who could possibly believe that this will just happen on its own?

That’s why activism is important. And that’s why what student unions do to encourage it is important, too.

Protesting about this or that isn’t the only form of activism that students get involved in. Student unions aren’t just against things. They’re for things as well. In every university up and down the country, in a process often sponsored by their unions, students are working in their spare time in a vast range of community projects.

If I may, I’d like to welcome in particular the work that you’re doing in supporting and mentoring young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

We all know that far too much of this country’s talent goes to waste not through lack of opportunity for development, but for want of aspiration. Up and down the country, voluntary activities coordinated or facilitated by student unions are trying to do something about that.

The impulse that leads young people to take time out of their social lives to take part in such activities, or to work with mentally or physically disabled people, or to work with old people, or to take part in a limitless range of other social projects is representative of the human spirit at its best.

If the young didn’t feel compelled for the strong to help the weak, or that standing idly by and not doing whatever’s in their power to struggle against social injustice, then there would be precious little reason to feel optimistic about the future of this country.

But they always have done.

They do now.

And there is every reason to feel optimistic about the future.

Over the years and decades, thousands of students have carried the habit of getting involved in politics or in social issues or both into life after university.

And society is all the better for people who care about it, whether they’re politicians or not. The NUS has taught generations of students that much, And those former students today are making positive contributions to their families and their communities as a result.

Obviously, student unions do plenty of useful things on campus, too. – and this audience could certainly produce a more comprehensive list of those things that most.

So I want to turn briefly now to what unions do for the welfare of their members, whether they’re active in the union or not. I’d highlight a couple of things in particular

First, students can be fragile at different times, as can we all, for any number of reasons. And student unions try to offer help and advice with most of them.

These activities are normally grouped together under the title of “student services”. They include things like counselling on and practical help with lifestyle issues and finance. They can also help with a wide range of academic problems. For example, many offer training courses on things like time management or interview technique. I’d also point out in particular the union’s role in ensuring that students who run into disciplinary problems with the university authorities are properly and fairly represented.

And the other thing is the one that I suspect most students value most. And clearly that’s the social facilities that unions make available. – and I don’t think you need me to go into the detail of this.

But all the things that I’ve been talking make an enormous difference to something that I and the Government as a whole are increasingly concerned about, and that’s the quality of the student experience, how much students get out of their higher education not just as someone’s future employees, but as human beings.

But I want to conclude my talk with some brief remarks on an issue where I think student unions have an enormous contribution to make, not only to the wellbeing of students, but also to the wellbeing of this country as a whole. It draws together many of the themes I’ve been talking about this evening.

The issue is the tension between preserving and promoting free speech on campus and preventing the exploitation of young people by violent extremists. It’s not a question on which I or the Government see eye to eye with the current NUS executive. But that’s no reason why we shouldn’t discuss it.

I believe that in any university it must be possible to express minority views in public and in safety. It’s only by challenging what everybody currently thinks that knowledge and culture move forward. And it’s only by ensuring that we all, personally, take responsibility for ensuring that others can express views with which we disagree that we safeguard our own right to say what we think.

Because there’s nothing wrong with holding and expressing extreme or unpopular views within the law. Students in particular have done that since the pacifist movements of the 1930s, through the Aldermaston marches of the 1950s, the Vietnam demonstrations of the 1960s, the women’s movement of the 1970s, the Trident protests of the 1980s, the environmental protests that we’ve seen in more recent years and much else besides.

In each of those instances, the people involved had a right to be heard. And so did those who held a different view. The right to express views entails the right for those who disagree to challenge them. And that’s why I don’t support no platform policies.

Students should be radical. They should be activists. And they should be able to profess extreme views if they want to. Who was it who said that anyone who isn’t a Communist before they’re 21 is a bore, but that anyone who’s a Communist after 21 is a fool?

But there’s a limit to how far free expression of radical or extreme views can go.

That’s why, for example, incitement to racial hatred has been illegal in this country for over forty years.

Civilised societies are built on tolerance of differing views. But they also depend on a set of core values shared by all civilised people.

The values of a liberal democracy in the first quarter of the twenty-first century.

These are all things about which unions need to think when they’re providing premises for meetings or organising meetings of their own. It’s also something they need to be aware of when planning their welfare policies.

It’s yet another good reason for them to forge links not just around campus, but with the wider community, including faith communities, of which all universities form part.

There are forces in our society today – and they have said as much openly - that are looking to exploit vulnerable young people in universities. To persuade them to commit acts that run absolutely counter to what our shared values are. Acts that would prejudice the wellbeing of our whole society, including the communities from such students come.

It’s the shared responsibility of everyone involved in university life, including student unions, to help prevent them doing that and to protect those who might potentially be vulnerable to them.

A couple of weeks ago, the Government issued guidance to universities on preserving academic freedom and combating violent extremism on campus. The guidance was drawn up with the close involvement of many partners, including groups that represent Muslim students. It doesn’t ask anyone to spy on anyone else. Its aim is simply to give practical advice on how to preserve universities as bastions of free speech, the rule of law and liberty to profess any faith or none in increasingly dangerous times.

And I hope that you, as student union managers, will take the time to read it and think about what it has to say.

We’ve covered a lot of territory in quite a short time this evening. I’ve enjoyed revisiting my own past in the student union movement, catching up on some of the things that it’s doing today, and thinking about some of the things that it could be doing tomorrow.

I’d like to end with a thought from the great photographer, Sir Cecil Beaton.

It ought to sum up what our entire higher education system is about.

And I think it certainly sums up what student unions are about.

Beaton wrote: “Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safer, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary”.

Thank you all very much.