My tale of me - Chris Jenkinson

I have written the following letter to Student Direct in response to a letter by Justine Hall in the 12th October 2009 edition of Student Direct (unfortunately the letters are not available online).

Dear Student Direct,

In reply to Justine Hall’s letter on 12th October, it is a shame to see the Green party negatively misrepresenting the Liberal Democrats. The truth is, our position on tuition fees is the same as it has always been - higher education should be free for all, and those that benefit most from it (financially speaking) will end up paying more in tax with our fairer and progressive taxation policies.

Justine’s mistaken criticism should instead be targeted at the Labour government - their failed stewardship of the economy under 12 years of Gordon Brown, first warned about years ago by Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats’ Shadow Chancellor, has meant that it is just simply not possible to fix all the problems Britain is facing immediately.

Abolishing tuition fees is a priority, but first the limited resources left by Labour to the next government should be spent on cutting class sizes to 15 in primary schools, bringing the poorest out of tax altogether, and investing in public transport and energy-efficient homes to help people save money and protect the environment.

Chris Jenkinson
Liberal Democrat member, Masters in Environmental Governance, University of Manchester

This weekend I attended the first-ever NUS conference for postgraduates. It was really about time that postgraduates, both taught and research, got the attention they deserve from NUS. I know many students’ unions will be looking to the new postgraduate committee for leadership on engaging postgraduate students in their unions in all their work - academic representation, societies, events and more.

I am delighted to be the first ever representative of taught postgraduate students on NUS’ national executive council, and I’ll be using this blog (among other ways) of keeping postgraduate students updated on the work of the postgraduate committee and NUS more widely.

After a long Law School meeting this afternoon I am pleased to report that the earlier decision to reduce the number of lectures by 10, per 20 credit unit, and replace them with ’surgery hours’, has been reversed. The lack of involvement of course representatives in the working group, and the lack of consultation with students more generally was also recognised.

There will be a review of teaching quality in the Law School in the future - as there rightly should be - but it will be less rushed, engaging more people, staff and students. I hope that next year’s law students do take part and contribute critically, in the way that the law course representatives I have known this year have done so since the proposals first became public.

I took the opportunity today to talk to many Heads of School across the University on the importance of involving students in these debates, as partners. Students I have known who have contributed to discussions about improving student support or feedback have made insightful comments which have often led to major changes when those students’ views were listened to properly.

I am very hopeful that there have been major lessons learned from the past few weeks and that students in the future are not consulted in a tokenistic manner but will be an intregral part of future discussions around teaching and learning across the University.

“Dear Tony Lloyd,

As an officer in the University of Manchester Students’ Union, I was shocked at the recent announcement by two-thirds of vice-chancellors, speaking anonymously, calling for an increase in the cap on tuition fees to at least £4000 per year, with some calling for it to be £20,000.

I strongly believe that this would be a very regressive move for Parliament to take, and will put off many people from applying to university. Students already graduate with thousands of pounds of debt, and the National Union of Students have estimated that if fees were to rise to £5,000 per year, students would graduate with upwards of £30,000 of debt, a magnitude of debt which is really only on a par with a mortgage on a house!

I am also disappointed that the vice-chancellors are speaking anonymously on this issue, and are not coming out publicly to ask for funds. I support their argument that higher education is underfunded, with class sizes out of control, underpaid staff and a lack of learning resources, but the solution cannot be to pass on the cost to the students.

I would like a debate on funding for higher education, but its terms of reference cannot just be ‘how much more should students pay’, and it cannot be conducted anonymously.

I urge you to oppose any plans by vice-chancellors to increase the cap on tuition fees or pass on costs to students, and I call on you to push for increased funding, from general taxation, for higher education, which must be a priority for this country in times of economic recession.

Yours sincerely,
Chris Jenkinson”

Please write to your MP about this issue as well. Feel free to use some or all of my letter for inspiration or the financial facts within.

The recent announcement that two-thirds of vice-chancellors across the country are lobbying for an increase in the cap on tuition fees is shocking and regressive. What’s worse is that the vice-chancellors are doing it anonymously. It isn’t just a small increase - it’s at least £4000 a year, with many arguing for £20,000 a year and one in ten demanding the ability to set any level. I don’t understand how more debt for students is going to be good for this country, especially in times of recession - students could be graduating with over £30,000 of debt.

It’s ridiculous that vice-chancellors are hiding behind anonymity and making these kind of statements. I want a debate on higher education funding - I don’t believe that higher education is funded well enough -  but I want it to be open and transparent. I want to discuss why universities don’t receive enough resources to pay their staff a decent salary, or why class sizes are out of control, and why there aren’t enough books in the library. I don’t want it to be restricted to ‘how high should the cap be’, or done in the shadows.

I want a debate - but not this debate.

As a life sciences student at the University of Manchester the way I was assessed in almost all modules I studied was through exams, and only exams. Yesterday, in my capacity as Academic Affairs Officer, I had the opportunity to talk to course representatives from life sciences and one of the topics we spent a fair amount of time on was whether exams are really the right way to test someone’s understanding of the subject matter, and if not, how they as representatives could go about changing the assessment system so they do test understanding.

I’ve already got strong opinions on the issue, so I sat back and enjoyed the discussion, occasionally clarifying some facts or asking some questions. It was significant that no one was that in favour of exams, other than in recognition that other methods of assessment take longer to mark and staff time is limited.

The two preferred methods suggested (though there were others) were more coursework essays spread throughout the semester, and more assessed group work or presentations. Someone made the point that in most careers, when people are asked to research a topic they are unlikely to spend crazy hours close to the deadline frantically cramming and then write a report in two hours without reference to the subject. Others talked about how, upon reflection the day after an exam, they’d already forgotten a fair amount of what they had just revised.

I’d be interested to hear what other students think about exams as a method of assessment. Do they work? What are they for? How would you prefer to be tested on your understanding of a subject?

Course representatives

I have continued work on the course representative conference. The booking form has been open for 4 days at the time of writing and over 60 course representatives have registered, which is an impressive number. I have begun work on my sessions in the course representative conference (the opening session, and education funding), and will organise a meeting to discuss the education funding session in more detail late this week or early next week.

The next round of course rep meetings on a school-by-school basis are coming around very quickly. The dates on our end have been determined and we are currently verifying with schools whether the proposed dates are feasible. These will be quite intensive but are very useful in gathering opinion about educational policy and practice, and talking and getting feedback about the work of the Union.

Review of Undergraduate Education

I have attended a couple of meetings, including the central strategy group, since the last Executive meeting. Current work at a institutional level revolves around curriculum design and reform (a new group I will be sitting on), the Higher Education Achievement Report, and review of the award system for excellence in various fields, academic and non-academic. Work at faculty and school level continues to be improving feedback, implementing academic advisors, and engaging more staff in the review.

Other activity

I was grateful to meet the new Chancellor and give him a tour, with the General Secretary, of the Union. He was very interested in the work we do in many areas including academic representation, societies, and our democratic structures.

I attended the General Assembly and took the opportunity to talk to several members of senior staff about the work I have been doing on the review and bringing to their attention the views of students and the Union on some of the changes.

I attended NUS regional conference and talked to colleagues about shared issues in addition to attending sessions.

I have also worked on some governance reform to the constitution for the election regulations. I talked to almost all sabbatical officers and several part-time officers (unfortunately constrained by the exam period) about the changes and found the feedback immensely helpful.

I have also helped many students with simple and more complicated problems via email, phone, and in the Advice Centre.

Since the 17th December, I have been working on the two key areas of course representatives and the review of undergraduate education, but I have attended a couple of conferences and contributed towards the website and other non-portfolio activities.

Course representatives

I finished the first round of meetings with all course representatives on a school-by-school basis before Christmas. It was a great opportunity to meet and find out what being a course representative, and studying, is like in many different areas of the university. Unfortunately the meeting duration was only one hour and I frequently found myself pushed for time to get enough information on a whole range of subject areas.

Attendance at the meetings varied significantly from school to school. Due to the short amount of turnaround before starting the meetings, I determined meeting times unilaterally, which meant unfortunately there was a short amount of notice and conflicts with academic commitments in some cases. More forward planning is necessary in future to ensure a higher turnout.

Kevin O’Brien, Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning) in the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences, led the sessions with course representatives in the faculty, asking questions about key aspects of being students in the various schools, which I believe was hugely beneficial for all sides. I am encouraging the Associate Deans in the other faculties to take part in similar activities in the next round of course representative meetings.

In addition, a large amount of work is being done into improving the quality of the data about course representatives so a more strategic view in the future can be taken. We are slowly becoming more aware of where the gaps in the data are so they can be filled and we are becoming more aware of the various structures of student representation that exist in the various schools. Being better at record-keeping means that less time can be spent on reinventing the wheel and making the same mistakes in future years and more on better support and more events for course representatives to benefit from.

I have also been planning the first Course Representative Conference, which is occurring on the afternoon of Wednesday, 11th February. I am hoping this will be a success and hope members of the Executive will attend and enjoy the conference as well.

Review of Undergraduate Education

I have attended several meetings regarding the review, in Humanities, Engineering and Physical Sciences, and Medical and Human Sciences, and with the Vice-President (Teaching and Learning), Colin Stirling. I have also been to meetings about the Learning Commons. Progress continues to be made and several changes will be in place for the upcoming semester, particularly around Academic Advisors. Discussions about improving feedback are ongoing and I have asked the course representatives to continue to be vocal on this topic so it does not slip off the agenda.

Other matters

I attended the Executive away day and the Higher Education Conference, hosted by NUS. Both were interesting events (in different ways), covering new areas that will influence the work I do over the next semester. The issue of postgraduate representation and involvement in the Union will be a focus of mine.

I was pleased to notice that several members of university staff are readers of my blog and have started to look into feedback on exams as a result of my blog post on the issue.

I am also pleased at the trial of the 24-hour library, which is going well. It seems more popular than first expected and I will be meeting the head of the library to discuss a way forward after the end of the exam period.

Kate Little, a course representative in the School of Law (with a new blog), is running a campaign called “I’m Hungry for Exam Feedback”, to get the University of Manchester to give personalised feedback on exam scripts - support her and the campaign by joining the Facebook group or emailing her. Here’s my thoughts on the issue of exam feedback.

With the January 2009 exams just around the corner and thousands of University of Manchester students revising for important exams, it is worth reflecting on how exams do and can help students develop. With all the hours spent on revising over the Christmas and New Year period, a great deal of work is put in by students.

What happens after completing the exam? Often, a unit done in one semester will be related to another unit in a following semester, or the next academic year. A good writing style is important for all essay-based exams, whatever the subject. Knowing our strengths and weaknesses helps us improve. Perhaps when revising a particular student knows they need to focus more on one area of the subject matter, but less on another.

If you are a first year, it’s very likely these are your first exams at university. Wouldn’t it be helpful to know whether you’re on the right lines and what you need to do to improve for next time around?

A mark is just an average of how you performed in a particular unit - it is a two-digit number which is intended to summarise a semester’s worth of work. Just a mark does not help that much with helping students develop. Does a mark of 57 mean you’re doing the same in all questions, or does it mean you’ve got a pretty solid grip of one area but are let down by other areas? Does a mark of 65 mean you’re fine for a 2:1? Or does it mean that you’re getting outstanding marks in one section of the exam but are just scraping a pass in another?

It’s difficult to tell what it means - which is why I agree with Kate’s campaign to get feedback on exams. It might be difficult to accomplish, but it is well worth doing. Students want to know how they are doing, not just on coursework throughout the semester but on all work we do - including exams. It helps us learn - isn’t that what universities are all about?

Last week I had the first eight out of twenty-three meetings with the course representatives at the University of Manchester. I’ve been meeting them on a school-by-school basis, as schools have a great deal of autonomy in educating their students. It’s been highly interesting listening to course reps from right across the university, and discovering just how widespread some of the problems are.

While I’d expected that some personal tutors were better than others, with some being very knowledgable, full of useful advice, and eager to give it, while others being rather apathetic, not bothering to show up to introductory meetings or declaring they were “here for research and nothing else”, I was not quite ready when it turned out that the tutors’ lack of engagement with their students seemed to be the norm. While the average tutor was generally helpful if approached, and may have reached out to their tutees once or twice over the course of study, there was nothing near the appropriate level of academic advice that students should be receiving.

If Manchester is to embrace a learning culture which is personal to the student, allowing students the flexibility to choose units they wish to study, in the learning environment they work best in, and getting feedback on work they have done rather than on the work the group has done, and to get advice and support tailored to their needs, the tutorial system needs to change to reflect that.

Late last academic year a policy was passed at University Senate,  introducing “Academic Advisors”. Academic advisors are required to make weekly contact with their advisees, and the role includes providing information and guidance on academic choice, planning targets for development, monitoring performance and identifying fulfilment of the “Purposes of a Manchester Undergraduate Education” (a set of attributes all graduates from the University should possess). This policy is a good one - part of a personalised education is developing personal relationships with members of academic staff. It is important for so many reasons, not least in that the academic a student gets to know the most is probably going to end up writing a reference.

I’m not pretending that all academic advisors will be brilliant. There will still be apathetic ones, who do not care about their students. But by making it more of a two-way street, with the academic advisor required to be more proactive and not just leaving it to the student, the safety net is increased, all students will get more support, and a major step along the pathway to a personalised education will be achieved.