Edinburgh student forum hopes to increase its status

The Edinburgh Student Forum (ESF) recently convened to discuss a number of issues relating to students across Edinburgh.

The ESF is a body set up with the aim of becoming an effective and meaningful tool for student campaigns in the Edinburgh region. The ESF was officially set up in November 2010 during the last National Union of Students (NUS) council meeting, and is still in the process of developing and promoting itself.

As forums are generally a vital part of Edinburgh University Student Assosication (EUSA) policy-making and one of the major sources for campaign ideas, the recently-set-up ESF is potentially an important representative tool for students involved in campaigning or expressing an interest in student issues.

Heriot-Watt recently led a successful bid to the NUS activist development fund and as a result ESF will be involved with this project working on promoting and improving itself as a forum.

Despite being set up last year, the forum made little impact as it initially attempted to establish and structure itself. However, Heriott Watt University Student Association (HWUSA) president Mike Ross said: “This year there has been much more of drive to get it going and build up a reputation." This coincides with a number of student campaigns being launched over the next coming months, and the body could therefore become a key player in future student action.

The concept of a student congress was suggested in February to ensure that ESF is focusing on encouraging students to get involved in activism. This will be done through a number of workshops and guest speakers encouraging students to discuss and become involved in student politics. Additionally ESF is looking further into local action it may be focusing on as well as setting up a blog or website to make it more accessible to the student population.

However, as the forum is still relatively new, it has remained focused on environmental issues on campus and wider national issues rather than student politics.

Yet as the ESF continues to develop and progress, the forum plans to work on making the body more publicly known by the student population through advertising and branding.