During their week 11 meeting, the ANUSA Education Committee passed a motion to assist six ANU students attend the National Union of Students (NUS) Education Conference during the mid-year teaching break. The conference is scheduled to be held at the University of Technology Sydney between the 1st and 4th of July 2019.

Proposed by Nick Carlton, the motion reads that the “Education Committee sets aside $1050 to pay for 6 students registration to go to NUS’s Education Conference.” Applications will open on Thursday the 23rd of May, and the results will be released by the 3rd of June to coincide with the close of NUS conference equity grants. 

Registrations will be subject to a questionnaire and will be “blind-marked” by ANUSA Education Officer Tanika Sibal, and ANUSA Social Officer Matthew Mottola. Tanika described that blind-marking would ensure that students’ names and political affiliations will not influence the selection of candidates. She further outlined that the questionnaire will resemble that utilised by the ANU Women’s department in granting subsidies for students to attend Network Of Women Students Australia conferences.

The six students that will receive the grant will be in addition to the SRC members that were planned to attend the conference. Tanika outlined that it is likely that this number will be similar to the five SRC members sent to the event last year.

She defined that the motion will help students attend the relatively expensive conference. Additionally, the committee highlighted that the subsidies would allow students to upskill and improve the functioning of the Education Committee going forward. However, questions have been raised about how effectively the conference will develop these skills. Tanika described that the operation of last year’s conference became “childish”, “unproductive”, and “disappointing”.