Last
updated: March 2007
NUS
VP accused of betraying former union
Following
Cambridge University Students’ Union’s (CUSU) continuation
of a policy not to participate in the National Student Survey (NSS),
former President Wes Streeting has been accused of ‘betraying’
his former union.
Streeting,
now Vice President (education) at the National Union of Students (NUS)
who initiated the CUSU boycott of the survey while President in 2004-5,
went before the Common’s Education Select Committee on Monday
February 19 and accused the CUSU policy of ‘perpetuating the old
school tie and secret handshake’ and ‘doing themselves no
favours.’
During his presidency Streeting described the government-backed NSS
as ‘not only harmful to student feedback mechanisms, but not useful
either’.
In his current position he is responsible for ‘advice and planning’
on the survey.
Streeting’s change of stance on the survey has angered current
CUSU officers.
Union Democracy Officer Jacob Bard-Rosenberg described it as ‘complete
betrayal, given that he led the Exec which initiated the boycott’.
These comments have been dismissed as cheap by Streeting who explained
his new stance, “The reasons why I’ve changed are that I
now have responsibilities to represent over a hundred other student
unions. Although I know that my personal position on the matter is the
same as the official NUS mandate, the NSS was a never a main plank in
my manifesto”.
NUS President Gemma Tumelty has criticised Cambridge students’
boycotting of the NSS.
“It only exacerbates the reputation Cambridge has of being an
elitist institution, somehow separate from others and affected by utterly
different circumstances, which is not the case,” she said.
