Currently legislation in the Education Act mandates that local authorities have a plan that adequately addresses the differing needs of students with regards to transportation to and from their place of study.
For some students, assistance is minimal or completely nonexistent, while many others qualify for comprehensive financial support in the form of travel subsidies which help them access educational opportunities.
As more and more local authority cuts take affect, these subsidies are at an increasing risk of being either severely reduced or entirely eliminated. Combined with the scrapping of EMA, this additional expense will place an unfair and heavy burden on students and their families.
In fact, without this form of financial assistance many students won’t be able to attend college at all.
Fighting Back
NUS will be riding a bus around the nation to campaign in the interest of those whose ability to travel is in serious jeopardy.
The campaign was launched at this year’s FEstival in Birmingham and was positively received by students, who were eager to participate and have their voices heard.
Click here for photos of the launch.
The campaign is going to pick up speed over the coming weeks as we bring the bus to the Welfare Zone Conference in Liverpool on 23 October and then to City College Plymouth, Lancaster and Morecambe, Coleg Llandrillo, and Prior Pursglove, all of which have been flagged as institutions where these cuts are imminent.
Once there, we will engage with the student community, launching ticket-style petitions which ask students to fill out how much it costs them to get to and from college a week, with a plea to the local council to not cut their only means of accessing education.
The day of on-campus activism will conclude with a presentation of the petitions to local councillors and various press events meant to highlight this issue on both local and national levels.
Get Involved
But we’ll need your help! Only when students effectively mobilize in their communities will we see real positive social change enacted on both the local and national level.
The NUS is here to help you do just that and if we aren’t coming to a union near you don’t worry: all of the campaign materials, designs, and toolkits will be available to download, or can be posted to you on request.
Check back here for more information about the campaign and the ways in which you can ensure that more students continue to get on the bus!
