BREAKING: Liverpool students vote to boycott NSS

The Guild has announced that in the preferendum run this week, Liverpool students voted overwhelmingly for the Guild to boycott the the National Student Survey.

1427 students voted, using a points based system that ranked their preferred options in order, and allocating a set number of points per rank. A total of 2697 points  were allocated in support of the boycott campaign, with 1228 opposed and 2115 for the third option of the boycott only being approved with a satisfactory risk / equality impact assessment from the NUS.

The NSS is an independently run survey which has been carried out across the UK since 2005. The survey asks undergraduate students in their final year of study to reflect to share their opinions about their experiences at university and key issues relating to student experience.

Liverpool’s boycott campaign stated the reasons for a boycott on the Guild website: “The government are planning various changes to higher education, one of the plans is to introduce a Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) to assess teaching quality.

“How an institution scores in TEF, could affect tuitions fees as it is suggested that Institutions that score highly, will be allowed to charge higher fees.”

Guild President Sean Turner told The Tab: “I am grateful to the students of Liverpool for giving the Guild the mandate to support a Boycott of the NSS. The NSS is becoming politicised and bastardised as it is planned to be used against the students. Boycotting it is our students’ last chance to have an impact on the Government’s dreadful plans. Bring on the campaign!”