Tuesday March 20 2012 | Week 9
SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT
T H E U K ' S O LD E S T S T U D EN T N EW S PA P ER
S cott ish S t udent Ne wspaper of the Year 2010
Week of action disappoints
Thurston Smalley
WEEK OF Action events held last week by the Edinburgh University Students’ Association (EUSA) were hindered by poor publicity and overscheduling, The Student has learned. The Week of Action, a National Union of Students (NUS) idea geared towards raising awareness of student opposition to increased tuition fees and other grievances, saw low attendance at the University of Edinburgh and barely any participation in its flagship event, the student walkout. EUSAUndergraduate Representative James McAsh told The Student: “The Week of Action has had limited success in raising awareness but
didn’t really live up to its potential. “I believe that the problem was lack of publicity and advertising. To make campaigns like this successful, it’s vital that it is built properly from an early stasge so that everyone knows about it, and this was not done adequately.” EUSA Academic Services Convenor Hugh Murdoch told The Student he had a more optimistic outlook. He said, “The Week of Action, has, I think, been a really good event. "It was always going to be tough to get people out for it, but that’s why we organised events that were focused on increasing awareness of ideas and also using a small group of campaigners to make a big impact.”
Murdoch had earlier pledged to collect 90 per cent of the Easter Bush veterinary campus’s student signatures by the end of the Week of Action, in order to petition for a free Easter Bush bus. He confirmed he had been successful. Murdoch also drew a contrast between the organisation of the Easter Bush bus campaign and the organisation of the Week of Action. He said, “We’ve been going out for a few months or so to get signatures for that petition. I started that up in January, and we’ve gotten over 500 signatures. "But that was very much about getting students involved in that campaign ...at the level they were happy
with.” “That only required a few students to be running the campaign. So I think we were very aware that there weren’t going to be a lot of people coming out to do the heavy stuff this week, but I do think we’ve made a really big impact.” Despite low turnout at last week’s events, EUSA hopes to learn lessons from the Week of Action and will continue to take part in and organise similar local events. McAsh told The Student, “This year wasn’t perfect but that’s not because it was a bad idea but because it wasn’t executed as well as it maybe could have been. "I would hope that in future years
more is made of such things so that they can be truly successful. “The Week of Action [had] huge potential which was not fully reached.” Murdoch reiterated that he believed the Week of Action had made an impact, and said it had been more productive than travelling to take part in larger events. Murdoch said, “It will be up to the Student Council to decide what action we support [in the future]. “I think that local action like this is something we could be doing much more successfully than big national action.”
INSIDE: Who should you vote for in the EUSA elections? p4-5
STEPHEN MAUGHAN
ZINING CUI
S I N C E 1887
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