Warwick SU Elections 2024 Interviews: Muneeba Amjad, VP Education
In the run-up to the Warwick Students’ Union (SU) elections, The Boar and RAW 1251AM collaborated to offer all Full-Time Officer (FTO) candidates the opportunity to be interviewed.
Last week, Muneeba Amjad, a candidate running for the position of Vice President for Education, sat down with Amelia Coleman from RAW 1251AM. The interview brought to light Amjad’s campaign priorities and plans to elevate the education experience at Warwick.
What would your key priorities be if you were to be elected?
Amjad outlined five key priorities as follows:
- Campaign for students to keep the right to self-certify and to release exam timetables earlier
- Increase the accessibility of education, primarily through making it easier for students to get extensions and mitigating circumstances, and ensuring that teaching facilities are suitable for everyone
- Keep Wednesday afternoons free of timetable teaching to allow students to take up sports and society activities
- Improve Student-Staff Liaison Committees (SSLCs) to make them more effective and to make students feel that they’re getting more out of it
- Decolonise the curriculum, which Amjad suggests involves “continuing the work of the decolonisation advocates in their sphere”
What will you do as VP Education to ensure that education is accessible for all students at Warwick?
Amjad stressed the need to increase support surrounding mitigating circumstances and extensions.
She added: “I will also push to ensure that the disability code of practice is better understood and incorporated across all departments.”
Amjad concluded: “I will also ensure that the timetabled rooms used for teaching are suitable.”
When asked whether she would encourage departments to maintain self-certifications, Amjad said:
“Yes, absolutely. I think having the self-certification option is essential for students.”
Amjad added that she understood the difficulty students face surrounding extension requests, and will work to ensure that all departments “have them available in most circumstances”.
How will you work with lecturers and the UCU to deal with issues surrounding intellectual property and whether or not to use Lecture Capture?
Amjad emphasised that lecture capture is “essential” for students and outlined reasons as to why this is the case, ranging from disability and medical issues to appointments or job interviews.
She stressed the importance of having lecture capture for “backup”. However, she understood that not all departments agree with this.
Amjad indicated she would “go to departments specifically that are perhaps a bit more reluctant to offer lecture capture and discuss with them what their specific concerns are”.
What conversations will you have with the University to ensure that student uncertainty around their timetables is minimised?
Amjad said she intends to “work with the timetabling team and ensure that students get more clarification around their lecture timetables”.
She added: “Obviously I know that timetables will can only be released once students have picked their modules. But I intend to work with the timetabling team to ensure that process can happen as quickly and efficiently as possible.”
How do you plan to lobby the University to keep Wednesday afternoons free from core teaching?
Amjad reiterated the importance of working alongside the timetabling team.
She added that she intends to “continue the work that’s currently being done by the current Education and the Sports officers”.
Emphasising the need for collaboration she said: “I intend to work with the next VP Sports and potentially also the next VP Societies to continue their work and to ensure that Wednesday afternoons are kept as free as possible.”
To bring the interview to a close, Amjad was asked:
How will you encourage students to become Course and Faculty Representatives and help them engage with other students that they represent?
Stressing the need for students to feel as though they “get some benefit” out of being a course rep, Amjad intends to “improve the SSLC Committees to make them more effective”.
Focusing on obtaining feedback, she suggested “surveying the current Course Reps, Academic Reps, and SSLC team members to essentially see how effective they’ve found it”.
She concluded by stressing the need to ensure students “feel that they’re getting more out of being a Course or Faculty Rep and actually feel that they’re making improvements to their course that will benefit people.”
This interview, along with all other interviews for Vice President positions, can be watched in full using the link here, courtesy of RAW1251 AM.
Comments