Making a millennial marvel
The Rise of Athleisure
Hidden Gem
Interview with Making a Murderer lawyers
A survey of the hot new fashion trend
Review of the acclaimed New Zealand film Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Page 9
Page 24
Page 29
The Students’ Union year of fundraising: the beginning of it all By Georgia Feeney
FREE STUDENT NEWSPAPER | VOL 18, ISSUE 03 | 11 OCT 2016
FEE
FIGHT USI to march for publicly funded thirdlevel education
By Aoife O’Donoghue The Union of Students of Ireland (USI) announced their plans for their national demonstration on Monday 26 September in St Stephen's Green. The demonstration is set to take place on 19 October at the Garden of Remembrance and they are hopeful that it will draw up to 5000 students from across the country to take part. The demonstration centres on the Cassells report, or the Report of the Expert Group on Future Funding for Higher Education, which was established to examine future funding requirements for higher education and to present options for developing a sustainable long term funding strategy for the sector. The expert group, chaired by Mr Peter Cassells, was set up in 2014 and in July of this year the report was forwarded to the Oireachtas for consideration. The report outlines three possible avenues the government can take with regards to funding higher education; the first is a student loan system, the second an increase in the state’s funding of the sector from 64% to 80% to make higher education free at the point of access, and the third is to make higher education free and entirely funded by the state.
The USI are calling on the Irish government and the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills to make a historic decision to follow the third option and invest in the publicly-funded third level education model as outlined in the report. The USI believe that the student loan option, which would be carried out on an income contingent basis, is inviable as the people of Ireland cannot afford to be saddled with student debts of figures around €20,000. Furthermore, the fear of such a burden upon graduation could act as a deterrent, rather than an incentive for many young people to pursue higher education. The USI is keen to emphasise that it is not just students that are affected by the financial strains of third level education, with parents, children, staff and teachers all feeling the pressure of an unstable and pressurizing financial situation. President of the USI Annie Hoey said; “We are calling on parents, teachers, family members, education staff and students to join in our march on the 19 October, and to echo the concerns we have on the future of third level education. The status quo isn’t working. Third level education is unaffordable and our universities are slipping down
on the QS World University Rankings. The loan scheme option put forward in the Cassells report is unsustainable. It will increase emigration, saddle young people with a mortgage-modelled debt and widen the gap between the rich and the poor.” Evidence has also been put forward by the USI that publicly-funded higher education can have benefits for the performance of universities and students; Germany, which has no tuition fees, has 41 universities considered amongst the best in the world by the Times Higher Education and France, whose fees are only €200 have 27 in these rankings. The USI are urging students from across the country to contact their local students’ unions if they want to join the demonstration, which is supported by members of the Coalition for Publicly Funded Higher Education including SIPTU, IMPACT, TUI, IFUT and the National Youth Council of Ireland. The Students’ Union is selling tickets for the march from the Students’ Union Office for €2 and participants will also receive a t-shirt on the day. Buses will be departing from the Cathedral and Gort na Corribe at 9am, returning at approximately 7pm.
With returning students settled back into college life and first years getting used to college life, it is finally time to announce who this year’s Students’ Union (SU) chosen charities are. Every academic year the SU council antagonise over months as to which charities are in most need of NUI Galway’s support. Despite having their own worries and struggle, students come out in their droves each year to volunteer their time for these organisations and we’ve seen the great success of this in the past. The announcement for this year's chosen charities came on Wednesday 21 September and they are the local Threshold Agency and the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution). Threshold is an agency becoming more known to students as they run a voluntary support centre for those having housing issues. Their aim is to secure a right to housing for households, particularly who are experiencing issues of poverty and exclusion. Speaking in response to the news, Diarmaid O’Sullivan of Threshold said, “Threshold is delighted to have been selected as one of the charities to benefit from NUI Galway Students’ Union fundraising activities for the 2016/7 academic year. The funds raised will help Threshold keep families in their homes and prevent homelessness.” The RNLI is also another well known group who save lives at sea. Mike Swan, Lifeboat Operations Manager (LOM) at Galway Lifeboat Station said they are “so thankful” to the NUI Galway Students’ Union for choosing them as one of their two charities this year. Both Threshold and the RNLI are two very important charities to the local Galway community. Planning is starting off on a high this year, with all involved eager to put together a wide variety of events of interest to all students and most importantly to raise big bucks for the Threshold agency and RNLI. With so many organisations locally and nationally it was difficult for the SU council to choose, but The Threshold agency and RNLI were the lucky ones to be chosen. Now all that’s left is some serious creative planning. To get involved with the volunteer group head into the SU office or email su.welfare@ nuigalway.ie Last years’ chosen charities were the local Rape Crisis Centre and the Irish Cancer Society. Throughout the year many events were held to raise awareness as well as funds for these groups. It isn’t all work and no play for students, however, with many of the events planned to raise much needed funds being student friendly. Continued on page 3