What did the campaign set out to achieve?
In May 2016, an election took place to elect the new members of the Welsh Assembly.
In December 2015, the Welsh Government published details of £41 million of cuts to higher education funding in Wales. This was incredibly concerning for students as it would have a huge impact on the student experience for those studying across Wales.
Cuts were likely to target vital services that Cardiff University provides. These include Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol, which supports education through the medium of Welsh.
Essential professional services, such as Support Services, were also due to be cut. These services are critical to a student’s success at University and by compromising these services, the wellbeing of students would be put at risk.
At Cardiff University, we provide a number of high-cost subject areas which cannot be covered by tuition fee income alone. These areas include subjects such as medicine, engineering, chemistry and physics, where teaching costs are significantly higher than other courses. It is hugely concerning to us that if these courses could not be fully funded, student experience standards could slip or the courses could be at risk of cutting student recruitment numbers.
How was the campaign delivered and who was involved?
We worked with Students’ Unions across Wales to campaign tirelessly against the cuts to Higher Education Funding. We worked collectively to lobby every single Assembly Member in the whole of Wales. The Students’ Union President also met with several AM’s personally, to lobby them on the matter. To further help with our lobbying, we formulated examples of how the cuts would affect our students. We used examples from Medical students who were concerned about the potential lack of funding affecting the recruitment figures for Medicine, and how that would in turn, have a knock on affect to the National Health Service in Wales.
The Students’ Union President also went on national television to talk about the impact of the cuts to students. This proved to be very powerful as we had lots of students share and like the interview, further increasing the profile of the campaign.
The lobbying undertaken by Students’ Unions demonstrates the strength of the collective student voice.
Our Students’ Union President also held our local AM, who wasn’t representing students with this decision, to account, through doing an interview with our student newspaper. This story made front page of the newspaper and encouraged students to write to this individual AM to persuade her to change her mind on the matter.
What did the campaign achieve and what change has been made to students and the community as a result of the campaign?
As a result of all of our lobbying and our collective student voice in Wales, the Welsh Government announced that Higher Education Funding Council for Wales will now only be cut by £10m, rather than the previously proposed £41m. Although this is still a cut, it is a huge reduction on what we previously envisaged. This was a massive win for the student movement and the wider university sector across Wales. I feel this really shows the influence and lobbying power that we have in Wales and that students are starting to be taken more seriously by the Welsh government.
From this funding, money has been prioritised for part-time courses and research. This will help widen access and ensures that the quality of research within Wales remains high. It will also assist with continuing to broaden opportunities that directly benefit the local community.
Although Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol and expensive courses haven’t been exclusively protected in this cut, we have successfully lobbied the University to commit to funding these areas. Our local AM who we applied a lot of pressure to, and held to account for the initial budget, reversed her decision and voted in favour of the hugely reversed cut.
This campaign has a huge impact for students here at Cardiff and across Wales. Since this campaign, our students have become a lot more politically active and more aware of the role that Welsh Government play with regards to the higher education sector in Wales. As a result, we had students actively lobbying politicians to protect the future of higher education funding.