Wednesday 22-03-2017 - 14:08

 

For the last two months, I’ve been asking you to boycott the National Student Survey and refuse to have your feedback used to raise tuition fees.

Despite the fact Ipsos MORI (the company that runs the National Student Survey), has been pestering students more than it’s ever done in the past, hundreds of you have still pledged to boycott.Your boycott has materialised into results.

 

keep boycotting, but know that you are part of a successful national campaign that is achieving unprecedented traction in Parliament.

 

Because of your decision not to fill out the NSS:

1. We have the most students pledging to boycott out of any University in the country.We were the first University to hit the national campaign target of cutting participation by 10%, which means hundreds of Bristol students are sending a clear message that we don’t want to be part of marketisation
2. We are the only institution in the country where academics have been given the right to publicise the boycott specifically articulated and agreed by the University. This was after Epigram coverage of an initial order stating that lecturers couldn’t be part of the boycott, which led to negotiation with UCU and a compromise from senior management.
3. You have been part of a Government defeat. The House of Lords voted two weeks ago to cut the link between the Teaching Excellence Framework and tuition fees. They explicitly referenced the NSS boycott as evidence that students do not want this reform. The vote has yet to go to the House of Commons, so keep boycotting, but know that you are part of a successful national campaign that is achieving unprecedented traction in Parliament.

 

The fight is not over. MPs in the House of Commons now need to vote like the Lords: against the Teaching Excellence Framework and against tuition fees.

If you want to help and be part of this, email the Tory MP for Bristol North, Charlotte Leslie to encourage her to vote to keep the amendment that the TEF should not be linked to tuition fees.

In the meantime, keep boycotting, keep spreading the word, and if you haven’t already, pledge here.