Jim Dickinson: Inspire students and they will usually find a way around the barriers

The response to the debate on ‘Should we pay Course Reps?‘ has been overwhelming so far and we’re about to notch it up another gear as NUS big name Jim Dickinson gives his thought-provoking opinion. Please do make sure you tweet this out and comment down below:

“In my line of work (I’m the Director of Policy and Delivery at NUS), there’s never a shortage of solutions. “Let’s do X”, says a student officer. “Let’s do Y”, says an enthusiastic Policy wonk. “We need a Demo”, “Let’s try a campaign”, “Launch a toolkit”, “Whittle a charter”. OK, so no-one has ever actually suggesting charter whittling, but you get the point. Our overwhelming desire to leap to solutions and actions, often in the absence of a clearly defined, attached or even related problem, is an interesting feature of the environment that we work in.

This course reps debate is, I think, a useful case in point. What could the question be where the answer is payment? More course reps? Better course reps? Sleeker, chippier, wilder course reps? Whenever the debate about the merits of a solution depends on competing definitions of the problem you’re trying to solve, you know you’re down chip alley without a photographer.

So imagine we start here. Course reps ought to pay for the privilege of being a course rep. They get huge CV brownie points for precious little work, get excellent experience in negotiation and committee skills, and get excellent treatment from academics (one once said to me that Course Reps were like spiders. “We’re more scared of them than they are of us”).

Then imagine that that’s daft, and that instead we pay because some students can’t afford to be a course rep. Yes- but what about the ones that can? If Little Lord Fauntleroy is the best (and elected) rep, should our cash really be going to prop up his champagne lifestyle? Probably not.

Then suppose that being a course rep is a job that attracts a wage. Imagine you dodge the question of worth (resolving instead to pay someone else’s carefully crafted thumb-in-the-air-minimum rate per hour) and even just try to work out how many hours are payable. Too few and all you reward are the hours spent in dull committee meetings, where reps go through the motions of re-presenting the views of learners on issues strictly aligned to the narrow terms of reference of the committee. Too many, and you could end up paying reps to do the extra stuff- the raising of issues outside the structures, the casework, the activism- when you can’t monitor or judge outputs or outcomes effectively.

Of course, listing a myriad of considerations doesn’t mean that the solution can’t be tried. But it does cause us to re-examine the problem. So often, the role of reps is desperately unclear- treated as glorified surveymonkeys by some, asked to be educational activists in a hostile environment by others. Asking critical questions about what we think reps are for- both within ourselves and across institutions- may provide us with inspiration.

And it’s still the case that when it comes to promoting it, be it a gift or a curse, far too few learners are ever presented with the opportunity. There’s still acres of work to do on getting the messages across about “being” a course rep that quick fixes will never solve.

What I do know is this. Removing the barriers to involvement only ever helps when there’s a swell of evidence that if only the barriers were gone, things would improve. When we inspire and motivate involvement- telling stories, building injustice, appealing the emotions and selling the opportunities- people usually find a way through, over or around the barriers.

Can we try that first please?”

Jim is Director of Policy & Delivery at the National Union of Students where he has worked for over 10 years, first as a Regional Officer and then with remits including regions, membership development, democratic services and campaigns. Before that, Jim was Education Officer and then President of the Students’ Union at UWE in Bristol. Jim tweets as @jim_dickinson

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Don’t forget to comment with yours thoughts, tweet the links out to Course Reps at your university and vote in the poll. If you would like to offer your opinion in a guest post then just drop me an email: dderricott@lincoln.ac.uk