ENS Statements

No to the Governance Review! For grass-roots reform of NUS, no to a second Extraordinary Conference!

Education Not for Sale’s leaflet to the NUS Extraordinary Conference (Wednesday 12 2008).
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New “Where we stand” statement for ENS

Education Not for Sale is a network of anti-capitalist students founded in September 2005. We exist to fight the rule of profit in our education system and in society as a whole, seeking to organize students alongside workers in struggle to replace capitalism with a society based on collective ownership, social provision for need, ecological sustainability and consistent democracy. We organize in the National Union of Students, in student unions, on campuses and in a variety of campaigns and movements.

We fight for:

- Free, top-quality, secular and democratic education and public services at every level, funded by taxing the rich and business.
- The abolition of all fees and a living, non-means-tested grant for every student, in FE and HE.
- Education not profit: business out of our schools, colleges and universities. Institutions run democratically by students, education workers and communities and aimed at developing free human beings, not teaching factories run by bureaucrats to make a profit and produce compliant workers.
- Mass direct action to win our demands, a campaigning NUS which mobilises such action - and a rank-and-file movement of student unions and the activist left prepared to take up the fight in opposition to NUS’s current right-wing leadership.
- Mass involvement and democratic control in NUS and student unions: for fighting unions, not bureaucratic service-providers.
- Student-worker unity; a fight to organize students who work; consistent support for workers’ struggles, on campus and beyond, in Britain and worldwide.
- Consistent support for women’s, black, LGBT and disabled liberation. Defend the NUS Liberation Campaigns. Free abortion on demand; free 24 hour nurseries and other social provision to liberate women from domestic drudgery. Militant opposition to the BNP, no platform for fascists. Fight racist lies, defend asylum-seekers, no borders.
- A political, internationalist student movement turned outwards towards the anti-war, climate change, global justice and anti-capitalist movements.
- Opposition to imperialism. The immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. We oppose any war and sanctions on Iran. In the event of an attack on Iran, we will launch a direct action campaign at campuses across the UK, along with student Stop the War groups.
- Solidarity with student, workers’, women’s and other movements fighting exploitation and oppression everywhere. Solidarity with the Palestinians in their struggle for self-determination.
- Left unity. The organizations of the student left should unite - maximum unity in action, free and open debate about our differences and disagreements.

We call on all student activists and organizations who broadly accept this statement of aims to support ENS.

Living grants for all! Tax the rich!

We demand a living, non-means-tested grant for every student! Tax the rich!

We are calling on student activists, officers and campaigners to sign the following statement.

We the undersigned believe that the decision of NUS National Conference 2006 to abandon the national union’s policy for a non-means-tested grant was a step backwards. We oppose this shift back towards the situation which existed immediately after the election of the Blair government, when the Labour Students-dominated leadership of NUS positively supported the abolition of grants, arguing that they were “unaffordable”.
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£10,000 per year fees threat

By Sofie Buckland, NUS National Executive

Many vice-chancellors are preparing a campaign for a big rise in top-up fees, according to the results of a survey published in the Guardian on 18 January.
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ENS Women statement on the Ipswich murders

We, the members of ENS-Women, are deeply disturbed and upset by the recent murders of women in Ipswich, and by the media coverage of these tragic events. We are also mindful that these events cannot be understood as occurring in a vacuum; rather, violence against women is widespread in the UK, and sex workers are especially vulnerable to violence, rape & murder at the hands of men.
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NUS Conference 2005: the facts

ENS activists have produced a briefing pack on the events of and issues raised at NUS Conference 2005. Click here to dispel the myths!
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ENS statement on top-up fees, student poverty and education funding

The following statement on education funding was agreed as a basis for campaigning at the ENS winter gathering on 10 December.

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ENS founding statement

Agreed upon at the first ENS Gathering, September 3 2005

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NUS CONFERENCE 2006 - VOTE EDUCATION NOT FOR SALE!

At its winter gathering, held on December 10 at Leeds University Union, Education Not for Sale decided its candidates for the NUS National Executive Committee elections which will take place at NUS’s Annual Conference on 28-30 March 2006.

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The case for a new student activist network

Education in the UK is increasingly geared towards the job market. By introducing variable top-up fees, the 2004 Higher Education Act established a market within the state-funded Higher Education system, forcing universities to sacrifice quality and choice and implement increases in class sizes and cuts in teaching posts in the name of “efficiency”. This trend has been mirrored in schools and colleges across the country, where cuts in courses, Private Finance Initiatives and privately owned City Academies subordinate the provision of quality education to the demands of business. The curriculum is being reshaped to introduce children as young as five to “entrepreneurship”. Meanwhile, communities are divided along religious, sectarian and ethnic lines by the promotion of faith schools.
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ENS statement on the suspension of Middlesex University Students’ Union president Keith Shilson

Defend student union independence!

Oppose Hizb ut-Tahrir!

Following recent Government pledges to clamp down on Islamist extremists on British campuses, the administration at Middlesex University has suspended its student union president, Keith Shilson, for organising a meeting at which Hizb ut-Tahrir would present its case.
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