Issue No 798 9 December 1993 íBare ^J^acts University of Surrey Students' Union Newspaper Another Nail in the Coffin for Lords a-leaping about Higher Education students' union reforms s if Students' Union Refonns wasn't Aenough, last week's Budget brought n Tuesday 7th December, David Vincent, Students' Union President, the Rev Ian more bad news for the plight of students OFisher, the University Anglican Chaplain and myself were invited, courtesy of with the announcement of a 10% reduc- the Bishop of Guildfwi to attend the second reading of the Education Bill in the tion in the grant level as of next year. Oh, House of Lords. This is the 13th Education Bill in 14 years but the Govenunent still and what a surprise, we can make up the does not appear to have got it right shortfall by acouing more debt in the The Bill, presented by Baroness Blatch, the Government's Education spokesperson form of an increased Student Loan. for the Lords, received almost unanimous condemnation by all parties in the House. Never were there more incentives not to The Bill is in two parts, the first concerning teacher training and the second, students' go into higher education! The effective- union reforms. In her speech concerning the second part. Baroness Blatch referred to ness of your Union may be negligible, the the principles behind the reforms: personal choice, democracy and accountability. usefulness of you grant will be minimal, Personal choice basically means the voluntary principle the Government is so fond of your right to voice your opposition to espousing, meaning that instead of students being automatically members of the Government legislation will be gagged students' union with all the rights of access that this guarantees, they would have to along with your naticmal voice, the NUS. 'opt in'. Core and non-core services (not actually mentioned in the Bill) were frequently referred to and Baroness Blatch suggested that those areas (ie clubs and societies) which were outside the core could be organised voluntarily by students, AT And as if that wasn't enough to be getting STUDENTS' EXPENSE! This is at the same time as the Government is reducing the on with, those 'barstewards' at the treas- student grant by 10%! ury have decided to let you pay your own tuition fees as well from 1995! Yes, the The democratic principle concerns codes of practice and guarantees to which we principle of free education for all has well believe our students' union already adheres through its Constitution. and truely bitten the dust for good - thank The accountability principle is for the benefit of the taxpayer, to ensure that public you Mr Portillo. A document leaked to funds (ie taxpayers' money) are spent only on areas as specified by the Secretary of the Guardian earlier this week stated that State for Education (ie the regulations which have still to be written!). "It was agreed that resumption of expan- The consultation period, supposedly taking account of the thou^ts and opinions of sion of Higher Education - currently the National Union of Students (NUS) and the Committee of Vice Chancellors and planned for the 2nd half of the decade - Principals (CVCP), appears merely to have been a cosmetic exercise. The Baroness would require some form of graduate seemed to dismiss the deep-seated fears of the CVCP and the NUS that tracking public contribution to tuition fees..." funds to ensure they were spent only on core areas would be completely unworkable. The first speaker to reply began by assuring Baroness Blatch of the whole House's heartfelt sympathies that she had to present a Bill which was complete "rubbish". He It has been estimated that an average also congratulated the Government in uniting the whole academic community of this student, graduating at the end of the dec- country against this piece of legislation. ade, may well leave University carrying Only one person, Baroness Cox, spoke in favour of the Bill, although she seemed to the heavy burden of £7,000 wwth of get confused about her facts and was unable to completely justify her support for the debt. In real terms, that amounts to about Bill. The general feeling was that the whole House of Lords was against this half a graduate salary, that is of course if legislation and several speakers commented on the unworkabiliiy of the proposals, the you manage to acüially get a job! But Government's seeming inability to listen to sound advice, the 'posturing dogma' and don't worry, the Government is currently 'Union bashing', the invasion of university autonomy and the shear 'vandalism' of a planning amendments to the 1990 stu- Bill which proposes to render students even less able to control their own affairs. dent fees legislation to allow you to take Many speakers suggested that the Government would be wise to simply withdraw the out yet another Student Loan to cover the Bill in its entirety and concentrate on more worthwhile legislation. All speakers extra expense! Considerate aren't they?! suggested that many amendments must be made in the committee stage of the Bill before it can become law. Come to the GM and air your views on Following the debate, Louise Clark, Press Officer for NUS said that we must be all these issues. Write to your MP ex- encouraged by the reaction in the House of Lords and also that we must keep up the pressing your disgust. I know we keep pressure on Tory MPs to ensure that the Bill is either thrown out completely or is asking you, but if we are even to have a amended drastically in favour of students' unions. The campaign is not over yet! hope in hell of defeating these issues we need to act now. Rachel Davison - Communications Officer Sore Parsons - VP Established 1968 Tel: (0483) 509275 Fax: (0483) 34749 Dear Editor Dear Editor My advice to anyone thinking of buying I am writing, as the person responsible a control card for the laser printers in the for the University's telecommunications, Mac Lab of the Mullens Building is - in response to Üie anonymous letter in think bard before handing over your last week's Bare Facts regarding student money. telephone services. Perhaps it would seem inconvenient to Rrstly and most importantly, it is not some, it certainly does to me, to insert correct ümt callers can be put through to your laser printer control card and find the residences if they ring the Security someone else's woiic subsequently print- Emergency number, as it is not (»nnected ing on the machine, deducting credits to the switchboard. Thb line should from your control card (costing 9 - lOp NEVER be used for anything other The views expressed on this puge are each). than onergency calls. personnl views and d(» not necessarily represent those of the editorial l)oard You could, of course, complain to the Next, I would like to point out that the or the Students* L'nion. member of staff at the Mullens Building impending change of the direct dial num- receptiwi and be relatively assured of ber prefix was originally publicised in the The ICditor reserves the ri^lit to «lit getting swne free credits to account for October issue of Surrey Matters. At that ail letters. your loss, I know I did. stage the exact date of the change was not known, but it was indicated that it would Dear Editor But short of getting up at 6 o'clock in the probably be in December 1993. Sec-^^ mcMiimg and using the Mac Lab wben ondly, the University is paymg BT to^p no-one else is there in order to check that provide an intercept, so that any caller The passengers travelling in the majority dialling a Guildford '509' number will be of the Union minibuses are in grave dan- no mac computer has a "print job" wait- ing for a control card to eat up -wben can advised that the number has changed to ger eacb time they board sucb a vehicle. '259'. I appreciate that the change will I refer, primarily, to tbe seating arrange- any laser printing be carried out? In fact I think I will do this. It is my only option. cause a certain amount of inconvenience ment in these vehicles. The two bencbes, to all users of DDI numbers, but it will arranged along the sides of the vehicle, save the University a lot of money, and perpendicular to the direction of travel, Kate Oliver will also increase tbe number of lines are inherenüy unsafe. Under anything a>^able for calls to the residences dur- but the genllest of deceleration, the pas- ing the evenings and weekends from 28 sengers en these benches tend, due to Dear Editor to 60. iheir own inertia, to lean towards tbe front of the vehicle. Coupled with the absence of any sort of restraint for the In reply to last week's "pissed off final With regard to the sugestión about em- passengers (i.e. seíUbelts); anyrequire- year who doesn't get many phone calls", ploying an operator in the evenings, a ment for hard braking by the dnver, or a we would like to point out a slight dis- student is already employed in the eve- collisicMi, would doubtless lead to head crepancy in your letter. You obviously nings to assist (^ers. However, it seems injuries teing sustained by some passen- haven't used the phone system very that many residents have not advised gers. much during tbe "social hours" of 6 and their friends and relations that they need llpm, because if you had, you would In addition to the lack of safety features to use a touch tone phone or tone gener- have discovered one of two part-time em- ator to use the automated service effi- in the vehicles, the drivers themselves ployees operating tbe extension system mustbeconsidered With relatively un- ciently.