Stamping out unfair treatment of students in FE

NUS applauds moves from the Association of Colleges to create an independent body to deal with the complaints of students in further education.

Under today’s system, further education (FE) students’ only real recourse for making complaints is through their colleges’ own internal procedures. While they can technically also appeal to the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) (the FE planning and funding body), in practice, this is inaccessible and ineffective since decisions are only non-binding recommendations.

Continues in Further Education

How to use our new website

The wait is finally over. Our new public-facing campaigning website is now online for your students, MPs and other stake holders to use. It focuses on campaigns, advice, news, cards, as well as a section highlighting the work of your union. As an officer or staff member, you'll still be using officeronline until February, when the sites will merge.

You can help make www.nus.org.uk a success by linking to it on your own site. We've created several web buttons for you to use where you can. Let us know when they're up!

Download promotional material for your site.

A quality training event from NUS and partners

NUS, in partnership with QAA, UUK and GuildHE, is bringing higher education experts together for a day of debate, discussion and workshops on a variety of 'quality' issues including student written submissions, course reps, work based learning, the Bologna process, higher education in further education and the internal quality work of institutions. The event takes place, in Manchester, on 11 September 2008.

The event is free, but you still need to book your place. Interest is already high, so book your place now. There will be speakers from the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the Higher Education Academy as well as experts from universities, colleges and students’ unions.

Course rep hub launched by NUS

What is a course rep? Who looks after course reps? Are course reps important? NUS, believing that answer three is 'a big yes', has created a new hub containing advice, best practice downloads and case studies for our member students’ unions to answer the other two, and more, questions.

Aaron Porter, NUS Vice President (Higher Education) says: "NUS believes it’s important that student representation is developed to ensure it meets the needs of its students. Students’ unions have a crucial role in working with their institutions to develop effective rep systems, and supporting their course reps."

Continues in Higher Education

Free NUS Extra marketing material for your students' union

The new NUS Extra cards season is nearly upon us and so it's time to get your free promotional gear. To help you sell more cards - remember a large percentage of that money goes to your union - we have produced a choice of two great point of sale kits for you to order according to your students' union's requirements. Both kits are free to order and contain the essentials to help you market NUS Extra effectively to your students.

Find out more, and place your order, at the NUS Services website.

Campaigning, ultra vires and protecting your union

Students’ unions are, at their heart, campaigning and representative bodies. However, since you're also a charity, ultra vires is also something you'll be, probably quite recently, familiar with. As a charity there are legal guidelines on what you can campaign on - to help keep you on the right side of the law, and keep your campaigns at peak performance, we've put together some guidelines on the subject. These are for our member students' unions only, so you'll need to log in to access the briefings section.

Not yet registered? Click here

Ten top tips for new students' union officers

So you've been newly elected and now you're part of the biggest student movement in the world and one of the most exciting campaigning organisations in the UK - but what exactly does that mean and how will you be part of the year ahead? We've created a short guide, with some useful tips, for new officers to help you get the most of your time in the movement. Congratulations and read on!

Continues in Strong and Active Unions

Good advice comes straight from horsesmouth.co.uk

NUS has entered into a partnership with horsesmouth, an innovative online mentoring site.

You’ll be able to login to www.horsesmouth.co.uk to give and receive confidential advice, communicating with people all around the UK. Senior NUS staff will be the first to enlist as mentors, and will eventually be joined by other NUS members.

For more details visit www.horsesmouth.co.uk or, to sign up to wear the NUS badge while using horsesmouth, register through the NUS page.

NUS Strategic Plan 2008-10

The NUS Strategic Plan outlines our answer to the question – “What is NUS and what should it do?” It takes us back to our enduring purpose, to our core mission: we promote, defend and extend the rights of students – we are the national voice of students in the United Kingdom and we develop and champion strong students’ unions – we build capacity in our member organisations. Download the Strategic Plan