Aaron Porter, President of the National Union of Students (NUS) is coming to the University of Sussex this Wednesday, 3 November.
The President was elected in April of this year by the NUS.
Porter will be taking part in a public meeting at Mandela Hall, organised by the Students’ Union, to discuss the future of higher education following the Browne Review and the Comprehensive Spending Review.
He is expected to promote the demonstrations in central London against education cuts on Wednesday 10 November.
Porter said: “The NUS National Demo on Wednesday 10 November is a great opportunity for students, staff and indeed the public at large to demonstrate their overwhelming opposition to the proposed further and higher education funding cuts and the dangerous hike in fees.”
The Browne Report, released on Tuesday 12 October, has proposed that there should be no limit on the fees charged by universities.
Porter has urged the Government to look at “alternative, fairer and more sustainable ways of funding the sector.”
Previous strikes at the University of Sussex, such as the one led by the University and College Union (UCU) on 18 March this year, show that Sussex students and staff are prepared to oppose cuts to higher education.
Porter is confident that the demo “will be a fun and exciting experience”, particularly for students who have never demonstrated.
He has been very active on the issue of removing the cap on tuition fees and was seen on the BBC arguing against figures such as Professor Steve Smith, from Universities UK. On live television he described Lord Browne’s proposal as a “step too far.”
Porter, a member of the Labour Party, clashed with Conservative MP Graham Stuart on the Daily Politics show. Stuart claimed that there had “been too much hypocrisy from the Labour left not least from people like [Porter] and the NUS.”
He went on to argue that hopes for scrapping tuition fees were unrealistic due to the political and financial realities.
Former University of Sussex student Sally Hunt, General Secretary of the UCU, will also be attending the meeting. Hunt studied international relations at the university from 1983 to 1987.
Cameron Tait, President of the University of Sussex Students’ Union, said that “having the national leaders of both students and academic staff at Sussex is also testament to the unity of opposition and resistance to these government cuts and though there will certainly be differences in opinion, we can all come together to resist the Coalition’s regressive plans for Higher Education.”
