NUS Passes Policy on Internships + Arts Education
Freshly returned from NUS Annual Conference 2010 it’s my pleasure to report on the Arts Group Policy that was passed by the sovereign body of the largest organization of its kind in the western world.
Safeguarding funding for arts subjects
NUS passed our calls for funding to be specifically identified and ringfenced for the subjects that feed the creative industries, in recognition of the continued and growing contribution that we make to the UK economy. In policy 301 of the Higher Education Zone, the conference acknowledged that:
Despite the substantial and growing contribution the creative and cultural sector makes to the UK economy, the Arts Subjects that feed them consistently face disproportionate cuts.
And in response has mandated the organization to:
For NUS to lobby for additional and protected funding allocation for subjects related to the Creative & Cultural Industries, in addition to any STEM Funding priorities
Fighting the exploitation of Unpaid Interns
After months of the National Executive failing to take any significant action on internships, the Conference passed policy endorsing the work of the Arts Group and other campaigns including Intern Aware and Internocracy. Our amendment (611a) in the Welfare Zone commits the NUS to act as follows:
-
- To work with Interns Aware, Internocracy, and Interns Anonymous to highlight the challenges facing students and graduates on unpaid internships.
- To lobby the Low Pay Commission to clamp down on employers who are breaking the law by not paying the national minimum wage where this is entitled.
- To work with the TUC to highlight to students their rights at work, and their entitlement to pay, if a person is undertaking an internship for more than 3 months.
- In partnership with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) lobby the CBI to implement the Interns Charter across all employers who recruit interns.
- For NUS to lobby for a crackdown from the HMRC and other government agencies on unpaid “internships” and other instances of National Minimum Wage legislation being broken.
- To work on the proposals for the development of a legal definition of an “internship” and how this may differ from existing work experience and volunteer legislation.
- To adopt The Arts Group’s stance that living wage should be awarded to Interns.
- To work progressively for more and higher quality work experience and placement opportunities across FE & HE Courses that meet the terms of the Arts Group’s recommendations.
- To ask students’ unions to campaign for a distinction between paid and unpaid internships in University careers’ services.
- To investigate the feasibility of total income (whether from loans, grants, bursaries or payment from employers) for students on placements during their courses to be at least equal to National Minimum Wage for the duration of hours they work.
We can look forward to working with the NUS to make sure that this policy generates tangible activity, despite a poor record from the organization of action on our previous calls for action against Hidden Course Costs, passed at last year’s conference (re-actioned on a wider scale by a motion this year). It’s likely that the best approach for impact on the Internships initially would be the introduction of the Skillset guidelines as a legislative measure, as (despite focussing on National Minimum Wage rather than living wage) they outline a fantastic and clearly thought out system of work-based learning opportunities as well as post-graduation Internships.
