Funding policy upheld

By Roger Waite

A motion tabled at OUSU Council on Friday of first week, which threatened to undermine last term's referendum on higher education funding, was defeated.

Brought by Ed Griffiths and Vladimir Gligorov from St John's, the motion was on the borderline of the constitution and would have allowed OUSU officers to interpret the phrase "decrease student numbers" as they saw fit.

There was no mention of officers actively pursuing a reduction of the national student body, as the referendum vote had dictated, and instead referred to campaigns relating to the abolition of tuition fees.

It would have also precluded council members from upbraiding officers for not vigorously pursuing the policy dictated by the referendum on the basis that the signatures required to force another referendum (to be held in conjunction with the OUSU General Elections in Michaelmas) were in the process of being collected.

Bryn Adams (Christ Church), co-Chair of the Finance and Funding Committee, moved for the motion to be struck from the agenda before the meeting began, but the move was defeated and the motion allowed to be debated on the basis that had it been unconstitutional it would not have been admitted.

While it is an open secret that the majority of OUSU sabbatical officers are in favour of funding higher education through progressive taxation, they have been mandated by an admittedly small proportion of the student population to campaign for a decrease in student numbers and both OUSU President Helena Puig-Larrauri and President-Elect John Blake have agreed to orientate OUSU higher education policy along these lines.

The motion was ultimately defeated by a wrecking amendment at which point Griffiths withdrew it.

Puig-Larrauri called the result, "A positive response for democracy," as it will ensure that OUSU officers are still bound by the referendum result and will not be shown to be disregarding it as an unfavourable misnomer.

The fact that a new referendum may still be held does not necessarily demean the current result: there will be a whole new student intake in October.

Many consider that putting issues such as these to the whole student body serves to augment OUSU's credibility.

6th May 2004