Rachel Wenstone for NUS Vice President (Higher Education)

Education is a fundamental element in creating a better world.

I believe that higher education has transformational potential, not just for students, but also for communities, both local and global. My fundamental belief in this transformational quality makes me believe so passionately that HE needs to be accessible to everyone. We have to celebrate it, and show the huge benefits that it brings to our lives, politics, cultures and economies.

Higher education is too important to be left to politicians and university management. Students are equals; we need to be partners in all aspects of creating knowledge and protecting future generations’ access to transformational experiences.

We have reached a seminal point in UK Higher Education, and our HE campaign. The decisions that we make now will affect how students engage in their education forever. There is a danger that students have accepted the premise of a marketised higher education – a private luxury, not a societal necessity.

Our biggest challenge is the fight to rebuild our public education system. Together we need to ensure educational experiences that work for every student. When we talk about quality, or innovation in the classroom, or the student experience, we do it as an equal in the knowledge creation, not as a consumer.

I am standing to create an HE campaign that will articulate and fight for a real alternative for every student – from every hopeful school child, to undergraduate and postgraduate.

Please take a look around, read my manifesto, and critique, comment and question – this is your HE campaign, and I want to hear from you.

Thank you,

Rachel x

Rachel Wenstone

NUS National Executive Council