Liam Burns: Now more than ever, we need a united student movement

You would be forgiven for thinking that I’d be terrified at the prospect of taking on the role of national president of NUS UK after the year my predecessor has had, but I’m really excited at the prospect. Excited because I’ve really enjoyed my experiences as president of NUS Scotland, and because these experiences have shown me what our students’ associations are capable of, and what we can achieve when we are united.

This need to work together; this need for a united student movement, is exactly what made me run for the position.

People might imagine that the NUS UK job will be a shock for me, coming from Scotland where the campuses are supposedly paved with gold and no one has to pay for anything, but that’s not the case – we see every day that fees or no fees, students in Scotland are struggling financially or are being priced out of education.

Others may think the fees fight here in Scotland is over, given that most of the mainstream political parties have said no to tuition fees being introduced in the next parliament. But this is also not the case – let’s not so quickly forget what happened with party promises after the votes had been counted last May.

At the last election we were told by politicians across the country that they would oppose any fee hike – and yet we ended up with English fees effectively trebled. Even as our conference closed in Gateshead on Thursday, the nearby University of Newcastle became the latest in a long line of institutions to charge £9,000 fees from next year. We cannot allow the same post-election U-turn here in Scotland.

A real concern now is the ongoing political football of the so-called funding gap between English and Scottish universities. University bosses and others are inflating the figures for their own self-interest and political motives, but the more this funding situation is placed into doubt, the greater the risk that when the next government takes their seats they’ll decide a fee-free Scotland is unaffordable.

That’s why these next three weeks until Election Day are so critical – and the weeks after even more so.

We need to be out there across the country in the run up to 5 May, making sure we have cast-iron commitments from candidates across the parties: no fees, better student support, and protected college places and graduate numbers.

We need to get out the student vote to show the candidates and their parties that we do make our voices heard at the ballot box and we cannot be ignored – and then, if they are elected to represent us in Holyrood, we need to hold them to their promises from 6 May. This is what NUS Scotland’s Reclaim Your Voice campaign is about and the response so far has been amazing. But we must step up the fight: check out the website for more details and ask your students’ association how you can get involved in their work up to Election Day.

I’m excited about the prospect of taking up the position of NUS UK president because I also care about what happens beyond 5 May, and because in the longer term I’d like to work for a further and higher education system for the whole of the UK where who your parents are, your background and your bank balance no longer governs your prospects for the future or your opportunities to continue in education beyond school.

In my time as president of NUS Scotland, improving student support has been the key focus of everything we’ve done, because a lack of income whilst studying is the key barrier to education, and the key factor when students are forced to drop out early.

The goal must still be a student support system where students are not forced to live below the poverty line, where students from poorer backgrounds are not forced to work 30 hours a week during study or put off study altogether by insufficient support.

I’d like to see the next government look at how this can be done with public funds, and to look to businesses to see how they can give something back to the colleges and universities that deliver so much for them.

The student support system in Scotland and the tuition fees regime in England are key obstacles to making our education system a force for true social mobility and a means for every individual to fulfil their potential.

Reforming one system and dismantling the other may seem like daunting tasks now, but I stand alongside a now-united student movement, and I know what we propose we can win.