Attending meetings with the University, responsible for the Student Rep system, and supporting student queries, the role of Guild Education Officer is one of seven full-time positions up for election at this year’s Guild Elections. History student Muhammad Abn-us-samad, Music student Noa Dewally, Sociology and Social Policy student Beckye Williams, and current Education Officer Jules Singh are all standing for election – or re-election – to the role this year.

You can find out more information about the Guild Elections, as well as vote in them here.

The candidates are listed below in alphabetical order by surname.

Muhammad Ab-us-samad

 

Muhammad’s main policies are as follows; reduction and eradication of the attainment gap between white and BAME students, an overhaul of the lateness penalty system for coursework, and increased awareness of study spaces. 

The attainment gap, in Muhammad’s words, ‘is important because [BAME] students should be as much a part of the student community as all other students, and should be treated fairly,’ observing that ‘by increasing the attainment of [BAME] students it would help the whole university.’ His plans for revamping the lateness penalties are extensive, as he believes that ‘the current system over-penalises late [submissions],’ and that a new system ‘would more fairly penalise late [submissions] and encourage submission of essays without hurting people who submit work on time, or increase [the] academic workload of [lecturers].’ Moreover, Muhammad proposes increased ‘awareness’ of study spaces, suggesting ‘attaching web timetables to the MyUoB app […] [that] can tell students when a room is being used for lessons […] [to] ease the squeeze of study spaces felt during exam periods,’ utilising empty seminar rooms to increase the University’s capacity for study space.

In light of the pandemic, he observes that ‘many students have had their mental health negatively affected,’ and plans to ‘work with the other student officers to help guide students to the mental health support available.’ Furthermore, Muhammad acknowledges the financial issues faced by many students at this time, hoping to ‘work with the Guild to create more financial education seminars, so students can manage their money more effectively.’

work with the other student officers to help guide students to the mental health support available

He has also suggested the use of banners around campus, ‘a great way to communicate with students,’ as well as proposing ‘ask[ing] for permission from National Express to put some signs on their bus stops to [communicate with] our commuter students.’ However, Muhammad notes that whilst the biggest issue faced by students today is the ongoing pandemic, he feels that he ‘can’t deal with that,’ but that ‘the second biggest issue is feeling part of a student community,’ something that he believes is ‘particularly bad in some subjects as Psychology and History.’

As a current Student Rep, and describing himself as ‘nice,’ Muhammad believes these qualities ‘will help make [him] an asset to the Officer team,’ and that in this elected position he can ‘help [to] benefit students.’

 

Noa Dewally

 

The key policies from Music student Noa Dewally’s manifesto are the following: improving the academic support on offer for the effects felt as a result of the pandemic; amplifying student voices through promotion of the Student Rep system; and overhauling the assessment and feedback framework.

Through conversations with students, Noa has ascertained that ‘the extra five days [grace period] is not enough,’ particularly as ‘having to then to wait six weeks for results […] [is] very much discouraging people from using those extra five days.’ Noa feels that the current assessment deadlines do not accurately reflect the current climate, particularly as the New Academic Teaching Year (NATY) has meant that ‘many people have their deadlines directly after breaks,’ meaning that students have to work through the holidays instead of taking time off. Noa, then, plans to ‘lobby for assessment deadlines to be at least two weeks after vacation periods, so students can actually have a break instead of constantly working all the time.’ Furthermore, Noa has ‘heard many cases of many students not knowing what their [exam] format is going to be,’ hoping to push for mock papers and example assignments to be made available for ‘every single module in every course, so that everybody has the opportunity to see what their exam looks like before they take the exam.’

make sure that everybody does have the opportunity to have their voice represented

Dewally also hopes to ‘widen representation of the Student Reps, encouraging more students from minority […] groups such as LGBTQ+, disabled students, BAME students, commuter students […] to make sure that everybody does have the opportunity to have their voice represented at any level of the rep system.’ By making the Student Rep system ‘incredibly vocal’ on Facebook, Noa wants to ensure that ‘people can understand how these systems of change work at the University,’ as well as ‘highlighting what the Reps are doing at department level,’ to showcase Student Rep success instead of ‘just being bogged down in everything that’s wrong.’

Perceiving communications between students and staff to be ‘quite poor at the moment,’ Noa believes that this can be improved by increasing visibility of Student Reps and ‘being seen a bit more so that people understand what the process is,’ hoping to make people ‘take it a bit more seriously and understand that […] it’s something that actually makes change and [they] can use this to help [themselves].’

Previously a Student Rep, Noa feels that the experience they’ve gained has ‘quickly helped [them] to learn how things work at uni […] learning how to make change, even if it’s on a small scale,’ once again emphasising how important it is for students ‘to be able to understand how change is created.’ However, it is not only a strong relationship with the student body that Noa wants to foster, aiming to ‘create an understanding in staff’ through emphasising ‘the actual views of students’ to the University, as Noa believes that ‘the University wants for students to have a good experience,’ hoping that ‘they’ll be quite willing to even make change, or for us to compromise.’

 

Jules Singh

 

As the current Education Officer, Jules Singh is hoping to be re-elected this year, prioritising increasing Guild transparency, improving University communications, and increasing accessibility and inclusivity across the University.

From a current Officer’s perspective, Jules believes that ‘there’s been a lot of confusion in what the Guild Officers have been doing’ this academic year. He plans to ensure that, going forward, the Guild’s representation of student views, and the campaigns on behalf of students are ‘a lot clearer, so that students’ minds are put at ease when it comes to how the Guild are resolving a lot of their issues.’ By gaining feedback from students, Jules plans to ‘lobby the university to release information in a lot more student-friendly and concise ways,’ as he has witnessed ‘a lot of confusion around timetabling in the MyUoB app,’ as well as similar confusion surrounding the fair assessment policy. By enacting ‘regular communication over all sorts of platforms,’ Jules plans to ‘make sure that the most important information is being relayed to the students,’ so that they ‘know that their voice is being heard.’

Jules believes that his ‘commitment to Guild representation will be key’ to his re-election, exploring the possibility of ‘branch[ing] out and assist[ing] the others as well with their remits.’ As the current Education Officer, Jules feels that the ‘team effort’ of establishing the fair assessment and fair outcomes policy through lobbying the University was his greatest achievement during his tenure, as it ‘put a lot of final year students’ minds at ease.’ When asked if there was anything he would have liked to have improved upon, Singh admitted that December’s ‘Preferendum’ could have seen a greater voter turnout, to ensure that more students’ voices were involved in their preferred position for the Guild to take over strike action. However, Jules notes that ‘the vote that was held previously [to the Preferendum] had half as many votes,’ with the exponential growth in voter turnout between the two votes suggesting to him that ‘progressive steps’ had been made ‘in the right direction.’ He is ‘quite confident’ that a similar vote in the coming year would see the voter turnout increase once again, by ‘looking at the data from the previous votes to see what types of students weren’t engaging […] and then making more of a conscious effort to engage those students in particular.’

students are consumers of a service and they have the right to make sure that that service is delivered in a quality way

Jules notes the ‘unknown element’ present in any attempt to tackle issues raised by the pandemic, as ‘nobody knows how much longer the pandemic will continue to affect students.’ Nonetheless, Singh is aware of how this links to ‘the issue that is always facing students, which is student feedback and making sure that the university is listening to how students are struggling and how they want their university to be shaped.’

For Jules, communication is ultimately key, as he feels that the University must ‘relay that it is listening to its students and [that] it does actively want to try and make change […] – because the University is funded by its students,’ emphasising that ‘students are consumers of a service and they have the right to make sure that that service is delivered in a quality way.’

 

Beckye Williams

 

Beckye Williams’ manifesto prioritises the following points; a student-led evaluation of the NATY; regular updates from the Education Pro-Vice-Chancellor; and the introduction of quality controls on assessment policy.

Beckye believes that ‘the new semesterisation […] kind of works for the ideal academic student, which isn’t most people on campus,’ as it doesn’t cater to students who have caring responsibilities, or those who have part-time work, describing it as a ‘really inflexible system.’ Preventing students from ‘taking control of their degrees,’ Beckye takes the view that the NATY is detrimental to students, as it leaves them little time to juggle responsibilities outside of their degrees. By leading a student-led evaluation of the NATY, Beckye aims to incorporate student feedback to dismantle the University’s ‘idealised idea of what a student is […] [someone who] works full time and all they do is uni work.’

Furthermore, the perceived distance between academic staff and students is something Beckye is keen to break down, hoping to implement regular updates and conversation with the Education Pro-Vice-Chancellor, noting that ‘we forget that they are also an individual […] when you know who that person is, it makes it a lot easier to raise your points.’ Furthermore, by ‘building a relationship between Student Reps and [academic staff] so that they can have an effective communication channel,’ Williams hopes to be able to create a more ‘personal connection’ between students and staff, allowing them to have more useful discussions about issues raised in meetings. Beckye notes that in her experience as a Student Rep that providing the University with ‘words and statistics,’ even anonymous feedback forms, can have a much more productive response, and so hopes to raise the profile of Student Reps, planning a more collaborative relationship between the Reps and the Guild, with regular drop-ins for Reps to gain the support and advice of Guild Officers.

However, one of the biggest issues that Beckye feels that students are facing is that of accessibility. She hopes to tackle this by aiding the University Library staff in digitising more academic resources, ‘because pandemic or not, digital resources [are] a way of accessibility of everyone,’ observing that ‘if you’re on campus, if you’re on your year abroad, if you’re on your year in industry, you know [the Library resources] are there.’ By improving the access to digital resources, Beckye hopes to create a more accessible and supportive environment for University students to study in, wherever in the world they might be.

I’d love to get in contact with local MPs and find out what they think [about university issues]

Finally, one issue Beckye plans to work on is the introduction of an assessment policy ‘to make sure that there’s quality marking for all the colleges.’ Revolving predominantly around improved communication, Williams plans to ‘ensure quality’ in the feedback given by markers, by enacting ‘baselines’ for quality and stricter turnaround dates for the markers in a college by college policy that will relieve pressure on students, as they will have a more secure date for when they will receive feedback. 

Ultimately, as Education Officer, Williams has aspirations of taking student issues to a more national level; ‘I’d love to get in contact with local MPs and find out what they think [about university issues],’ as she believes it would be ‘really interesting to get in touch and […] collaborate together.’ Williams states that she ‘really want[s] to be able to help people,’ hoping to use a position in the Guild to amplify her voice, and ‘take the collective voice to go and do something with it.’

 

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