Students’ Union Education Officer, Aaron Clogher said the SU will speak with various individuals and interest groups in the coming weeks to determine the approach the Union will take after DCU students voted for a completely free third-level education system in last week’s funding referendum.
Speaking to The College View, Clogher said: “It is certainly a very interesting decision that has been made by the majority of students in DCU. Free Fees is an increasingly popular ideology on third level campuses across the country, and this has proved the case this week in DCU. It was fantastic that there was a good turnout, with over fifteen hundred students making their voice heard on the issue.”
The SU Vice President feels DCU students were well informed and had enough knowledge to make the right decision. “Whatever choice the majority of DCU Students make is the right choice for the DCU Students. Of course, we will have opposition, even within our membership, to this decision, as would have been the case with a result in favour of any of the other four models, but this is what has won out on this occasion.
“I feel that students were given good opportunity to inform themselves of the details of the different models in advance of the vote, both by our information campaign and the different campaigns around campus”
Clogher, along with other members of DCU SU, will now put plans in place on how to act on the results of the referendum.
“As the result of the Referendum has just been announced, we are just beginning to formulate plans on how to act on the result. We intend to meet with, and discuss the result with some of the groups and individuals who were involved in the campaign for free fees to get their insight and also speak to our colleagues around the country who have also been mandated to campaign for an education system with free fees.”
Clogher told The College View the result will be discussed at this evening’s Class Rep Council meeting. “The decision will be discussed at SU Executive and Class Rep Council next week where we will be interested to hear comment and suggestion from the elected student representatives on how to proceed with the mandate that we have been presented with.”
Gill Fitzsimons
IMAGE CREDIT: Viktorija Drozdova
Leave a Reply