| National Union Of Students Of The United Kingdom |
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The National Union of Students (NUS) is the main federation of Students' Union s that exist inside the United Kingdom . Although the NUS is the central organisation for all affiliated unions in the UK, there also exist the national bodies NUS Scotland , NUS Wales/UCM Cymru and NUS-USI in Northern Ireland . NUS is a member of '' ESIB, The National Unions Of Students In Europe ''. HISTORY The NUS was formed in 1922 at a meeting held at the University of London. At this meeting, the Inter-Varsity Association and the International Students Bureau (which organised student travel and had been lobbying for a national body) agreed to merge. Founding members included the unions of University Of Birmingham , Imperial College London (who first left in 1923 and have subsequently rejoined and left twice, being members again from 2006), King's College London (who supplied the first President ( Sir Ivison Macadam ) and the University Of Bristol . Financial crisis In recent years, the NUS has faced a prolonged financial crisis, caused by a coinciding of spiralling expenditure and decreasing income. A series of measures were proposed to address this, of which the most controversial included a series of changes to the constitutional and democratic processes. In 2004 , two emergency conferences passed some of the changes proposed, albeit not without fierce dispute between those claiming the proposals were necessary reforms to maintain the existence of the organisation and those arguing that they were aimed at curbing democracy and involvement. The 2006 NUS Conference passed a policy enabling the NUS to launch a paid-for student discount card, in September, called ' NUS Extra ', on sale to students at GB£ 10. MEMBERSHIP All UK students' unions are able to join the NUS (providing they are not controlled by their parent institution and their admission is approved by National Conference). To become a constituent member, unions must pay an affiliation fee to NUS, which is based upon the number of students in the union, and the money received by the union from its parent institution. The NUS now has over 700 constituent members (the unions of either Higher Education or Further Education establishments) through which it represents approximately 5 million UK students, which equates to approximately 98% of all students and hence potential members. However, a small number of high profile educational institutions are not members. These include the University Of Glasgow , University Of St Andrews , University Of Dundee , University Of Southampton , and Open University . In recent years NUS membership has become a controversial issue with some unions seeing General Meeting motions and Referendum s on the membership issue. The NUS have in the past received criticism for spending significant amounts of time and money in running pro-affiliation campaigns at universities to ensure that they win referendums. Recent leavers of the NUS have included UMIST (which is now reaffiliated through its merger to form UMSU ), the University Of Sunderland , the University Of Southampton and Aston University . However, these defections have been partly counterbalanced by the entry into membership of the University Of Edinburgh and Imperial College London . DEMOCRACY The NUS holds national conferences once a year. National Conference is the sovereign body of NUS, and is where NUS policy is decided. Other conferences, such as Regional Conferences, Women's Conference, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Trans Conference (changed as of 2004 ), Students With Disabilities Conference, Black Students' Conference and the International Students' Conference (created in 2004 ) are run to enhance the representation of the specific members they include. Most of these conferences, and in particular the elections held at them, are hotly contested by Faction s including Conservative Future , Education Not For Sale , Labour Students , Liberal Democrat Youth And Students , the Organised Independents , Socialist Students , Student RESPECT , and Student Broad Left . In addition to these political factions, interest groups such as the Federation Of Student Islamic Societies and the Union Of Jewish Students are deeply involved in the internal democratic processes of NUS. SERVICES NUS offer a number of services to their constituent members. NUS owns a 25% share in NUS Services . NUS Services started out as a purchasing consortium that allows its members to benefit from bulk purchasing discounts. NUS and NUS Services work closely with the Association For Managers In Students' Unions . CRITICISMS |
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