Wednesday 5^th November saw students from Liverpool Guild of Students, Liverpool Students Union and Hope Students Union unite for the National Union of Students day of action ‘Students in the Red’. Students toured the city on a classic red route master bus raising awareness of the National Union of Students (NUS) report Broke & Broken which highlights some fundamental flaws in the higher education funding system.

 

 

 

 

 

The main message of the day was: although higher education might not be for everyone, everyone should have the opportunity to go to University. In Liverpool this has a particular resonance; in some streets of Liverpool 8 out of 10 children will go to University, whereas in other streets it’s more like 8 out of 100. The bus visited Calderstones School, a local high school, to speak with pupils who the future proposals for funding would affect. Hundreds of pupils signed the postcards to MPs, from year 7 to year 12. Later in the day we also visited a local Further Education college, Liverpool Community College, to speak to some of those students already filling out the UCAS forms.

 

 

 

 

The rest of the day was spent journeying around the city centre, giving lifts to students on the way to University and asking the whole of Liverpool to ‘get on board’ the campaign. Thousands of people around Liverpool signed postcards to their MPs requesting that students and the local community have a voice in the funding review that is beginning this week. One of the most exciting points of the day was visiting the very beautiful and grand St Georges Hall for a photo shoot with local city councillors Cllr Nick Small; Cllr Anne O’Byrne; Cllr Keith Turner; Cllr Paul Twigger; and Cllr Paul Clein. The councillors even joined us on the campaign trail visiting the Albert Dock. Last year the City Council established a higher education scrutiny panel to discover what economic impact a lifting of the cap on fees would have on the city. It was discovered that students contribute £250m outside their courses to the city and that any lift would have a detrimental effect on the city’s economy. This information will be fed directly into any future review of the funding system.

 

‘Students in the Red’ was an incredible success with good press coverage and thousands of postcards signed. There was clearly a lot of support from local residents and has been supported locally by the University of Liverpool’s University and College Union.  The efforts to raise awareness of the Broke & Broken report will continue into 2009 when NUS will propose an alternative to the current higher education funding model. Look out for stunts around University in the next couple of months. To find out more about the campaign or to get involved contact guilddpres@liv.ac.uk or visit www.lgos.org/brokeandbroken.

 

 

 

LGoS on BBC online:

BBC News Article  

 

LGoS on Guardian education:

Guardian Article  

 

LGoS in the local press:

 

 

 

Juice FM

 

 

 

Radio City

 

BBC Merseyside